Incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev has won the April 26 elections by a record huge mandate of 97.7 percent.
Speaking to media after winning a fifth term in office, President Nazarbayev was apologetic about his landslide victory, but added that it would have been constitutionally improper for him to intervene in the vote counting process.
President Nazarbayev was the candidate of the ruling Nur Otan Party, and he had an electoral face-off with two other candidates -Abelgazi Kusainov, the Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan, and Turgun Syzdykov, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan, said Serikzhan Akshalov, Counsellor (Politic) at the Embassy of Kazakhstan in New Delhi during a press conference on Monday evening.
Mr. Akshalov further revealed that Mr. Kusainov and Mr. Syzdykov got 0.7 percent and 1.6 percent respectively of the vote.
Reflecting on the growth dynamics of the voter turn-out, Kazakhstan's Ambassador to India, Bulat Sarsenbayev, said that in 1999, President Nazarbayev secured 79.79 percent of the popular vote. In 2005, he got 91 percent of the vote, while in 2011, it was 95.55 percent of the vote, and now, it was 97.7 percent.
He also said the presidential elections was unique this time in the sense that the voter turn-out was at an unprecedented high of 95.11 percent, and that polls were observed by foreign and local officials to be open, transparent and without serious violations in the electoral process, and met international standards.
Polling took place at over 550 polling stations across the country, including 312 located in cities and 238 in rural areas. More than 1,500 people surveyed the polls.
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In the 65 polling stations opened at the nation's diplomatic posts around the world, nearly 20,000 Kazakh citizens exercised their right to vote, including 116 at the embassy in New Delhi.
The presidential polls were reported upon and covered by more than 200 foreign journalists from 37 countries.
Over 10000 domestic and 1026 foreign observers and organizations monitored the elections in Kazakhstan.
The casting of votes took place between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Italian legislator Riccardo Migliori said, "I have helped monitor elections in more than 30 countries. However, I can say that your election is more transparent than those that recently took place in the USA."
Ambassador Sarsenbayev told ANI that the election process went off very smoothly, and added, that at the same time the embassy and its officials were in touch with their Nepal and Russian counterparts monitoring the rescue operations of Kazakh citizens stranded in earthquake-hit Nepal.
He said during these elections, the focus was on President Nazarbayev's economic development and reforms agenda, also known as Nur Zhol.
"The Kazakh people have seen the results and voted for President Nazarbayev. The voting pattern suggests that the citizens have shown faith and believe that all key issues affecting and impacting Kazakhstan were and will continue to be addressed and resolved," said Ambassador Sarsenbayev.
He said the holding of the elections and the high mandated outcome has to be seen as unique given that Kazakhstan had a diverse citizenry of 130 nationalities and pursued seven types of religious confessions.
He was confident that the President Nazarbayev was now poised to initiate a new set of reforms soon after his formal inauguration next month in Astana.
"Till now, 24 years have passed, and these 24 years have been a success story for Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is developing very quickly, and we are among the quickest developing countries in the world," the Kazakh envoy said.
"The results have been more or less predictable, and people in majority trust their president and trust the government led by him, and that is why he has the support as he had 24 years ago," he added.
"We have come to a stage when we know already that he is the right person to lead the country," Ambassador Sarsenbayev said.
The envoy further stated that the main reason for holding the presidential polls ahead of schedule was because the government did not want two elections to happen in the same year.
"Next year, according our Constitution, we were scheduled to conduct the elections of the lower chamber of the parliament and the presidential elections. It was thought that having two elections in a year, could create administrative issues; this is one thing; and the other thing was economic - the world is facing a difficult time. The prices of oil have gone down, and stability in some areas, and also economic stability in the Euro-Asian Zone, this makes everybody a bit afraid, people were afraid that this 24 years success story might end," he said.
"I think these presidential elections being held one year ahead of the schedule will make our people more sure about the future of our country," Ambassador Sarsenbayev said.
"Now, life is changing, different rules and approaches; that's why, the behavior should be different. We have many ambitions, because without ambitions, no future development. If you don't put some ambitious targets on yourself, you will not move," he said.
"We want to compete and make products which will be competitive at the international level. In this regard, we regard India as our possible partner to implement this industrialization program," Ambassador Sarsenbayev said.
