Kazakh ruling party wins election

MOSCOW — Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev's party won 80.74 per cent of votes in parliamentary elections, the Central Election Commission said yesterday.

However, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) immediately criticised the vote, saying the election was marred by government pressure on opposition parties and the state's unwillingness to accept public debate.

"This election took place in a tightly controlled environment with serious restrictions," said Miklos Haraszti, head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights observation mission, according to the Interfax news agency.

Besides Nazarbayev's Nur Otan (Fatherland's Ray of Light) party, two other parties reportedly overcame a 7 per cent popularity hurdle in Sunday's elections to place representatives in the legislature: Ak Zhol (Bright Way) and the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan.

Both parties have generally supported Nazarbayev's policies in the past.

Recent constitutional amendments made it manda- tory for parliament to have representatives from at least one non-ruling party, a change that Nazarbayev said would help end Nur Otan's near-total control of the legislature and move Kazakhstan towards democratic government.

However, Kazakhstan government officials interfered with the work of OSCE vote monitors on election day and worked actively in months leading up to the vote to prevent opposition parties from obtaining seats in the legislature, Haraszti said.

The election and the government's attitude towards it "fell short" of democratic prin- ciples, he added.

Amirzhan Kosanov, leader of the opposition All-national Social Democrat Party, called results of the vote "dirty and illegitimate" and said a sanctioned anti-government rally in protest would take place on Tuesday in Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty on Tuesday.

Kazakh authorities have ordered protesters to gather in a park in an residential district far from Almaty's centre, and refused opposition applications to hold anti-government protests in other cities, Kosanov said, according to Interfax. — dpa