Kazakhstan's Tokayev gets over 70% of vote: exit polls

By Aliia Raimbekova

NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (AA) - Kazakhstan's interim leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has been elected with over 70% in Sunday's presidential election, according to exit polls.

Tokayev got 70.13% of the votes, Ainur Mazhitova, chairman of the Public Opinion Research Institute in Nur-Sultan said in a press conference.

Voter turnout was 77.4% of the 12 million registered voters, according to the country's Central Election Commission.

After voting, former long-term president Nursultan Nazarbayev said that a new generation will come with new thoughts and they will carry Kazakhstan to new heights.

Nazarbayev, 78, who has ruled the country since its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, is the first Central Asian leader of the post-Soviet era to willingly leave the office. His five-year term was due to end in 2020.

On April 9, Tokayev, 66, who took the reins as acting president a day after the resignation of Nazarbayev earlier in March, announced that the oil-rich Central Asian country will go to early presidential elections on June 9.

*Writing by Erdogan Cagatay Zontur