Kazakhstan's Tokayev leads in snap presidential election

Incumbent president secures over 80% of vote, according to several exit polls

By Meiramgul Kussainova

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AA) - Kazakhstan’s incumbent President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is leading Sunday’s early presidential elections with over 80% of the vote, according to exit polls.

According to an exit poll conducted by the Open Society International Institute for Regional Studies, Tokayev received 82.45%.

Other candidates won 2%-3% of the vote, while 5.2% of voters voted against all candidates.

In an exit poll conducted by the Amanat party’s Institute of Public Policy at 600 polling stations, 85.52% of voters voted for Tokayev.

The Institute for Comprehensive Social Research conducted an exit poll at 379 polling stations across the country.

The exit poll showed that Tokayev was far ahead of the other five candidates with 82.02% of the vote.

Tokayev visited the election center in the capital, Astana, after the results of the exit polls.

He met with his voters and deemed the elections "historic."

Voting in Sunday’s snap presidential elections in Kazakhstan ended at 10 p.m. Astana time (1600GMT).

According to the Kazakh Central Election Committee, as of 10 p.m., turnout was over 69%, with nearly 8.3 million of around 12 million eligible voters casting ballots.

The elections pitted incumbent President Tokayev against five other presidential candidates in the country’s seventh presidential race.

The call for early elections was made by Tokayev in late September with a decree saying the polls would launch "an electoral cycle that will lead to a radical reset of the entire political system."

The announcement of early elections came the day after Tokayev approved a constitutional amendment to increase the presidential term to seven years from five while barring future presidents from serving a second term.

Another move was changing the capital’s name back to Astana after it was changed to Nur-Sultan in 2019 in a tribute to outgoing President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Tokayev took over as president in March 2019, succeeding Nazarbayev, who ruled the oil-rich Central Asian nation for three decades.

Preliminary election results are expected to be announced Monday and Tuesday, according to a Kazakh Foreign Ministry statement.

Kaynak: