Kazakhstan elected a new parliament on Sunday just a month after deadly riots challenged the resource-rich but authoritarian nation’s status as the beacon of Central Asian growth.
The vote is designed to breathe new life into a system under which veteran leader Nursultan Nazarbayev sacrificed political freedoms in exchange for a record decade of micro-managed economic prosperity.
The resulting social tensions exploded in December when 16 people were killed in clashes between striking oil workers and security forces in what became Kazakhstan’s worst bloodshed since the Soviet Union’s fall. The 71-year-old president — in power since 1989 and still with no clear successor in sight — said after casting his ballot in the capital Astana that the vote was “a big test”.
“I am sure that the Kazakh people will make the right choice for their future, for the country’s development, for calm in our common country,” the former metal worker said in comments posted on his website.
“We have done everything necessary to ensure an open and fair vote,” he said. Six parties are challenging Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan (Light of the Fatherland) group under new rules in which the second-place finisher will for the first time collect seats even if it wins less than the seven-percent threshold.
