Kazakhstan’s Tokayev wins snap presidential election: Preliminary results
ISTANBUL (AA) – Kazakhstan’s incumbent President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has won Sunday’s snap presidential election with over 81% of the vote, according to preliminary results.
Kazakh news agency Kazinform, citing the country’s Central Election Commission, said Tokayev won over 6.4 million votes, securing an easy victory against five little-known candidates.
Voting ended at 10 p.m. Astana time (1600GMT), with the turnout said to be 69% by the end of the day – nearly 8.3 million of around 12 million eligible voters cast ballots.
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 came after Tokayev approved a constitutional amendment to increase the presidential term from five years to seven 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.
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