March 19 Election,the Biggest Political Event for Future of Kazakhstan
March 19 Election,the Biggest Political Event for Future of Kazakhstan
The countdown has started for one of the biggest political event in the history of Republic of Kazakhstan as Kazakhs will go to polls on March 19 for the parliamentary elections, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Tehran H.E. Askhat Orazbay said.

TEHRAN (Iran News) –The countdown has started for one of the biggest political event in the history of Republic of Kazakhstan as Kazakhs will go to polls on March 19 for the parliamentary elections, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Tehran H.E. Askhat Orazbay said.

Speaking in a presser on Monday at the Embassy of Kazakhstan, Orazbay highlighted major developments regarding the March 19 parliamentary election in Kazakhstan. He first said that Kazakhstan has announced three days of holiday for celebrating Nowruz (New Year) as many countries in the region celebrate it.

He then said that the snap parliamentary (lower parliament) election is considered an important event in the framework of political developments in Kazakhstan, noting that Kazakh President pursues a new policy for building a country based on justice and this needs major developments in all fields and after the referendum, the parliamentary election is the other development.

Orazbay said that Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is determined to direct his country towards justice and reshuffling laws of election and helping openness and freedom of expression in the country. He reiterated the country needs a new parliament (Mazhilis) to help the president for building a new Kazakhstan.

In his Address to the Nation on September 1, 2022, President Tokayev said: “The holding of early elections to the Mazhilis and maslikhats is dictated by the logic of the constitutional reform, supported by citizens at the national referendum. According to its results, our country moved to new, fairer, and more competitive rules of formation of the representative branches of power“.

He then said that the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced the admission of all seven registered political parties to participate in the 2023 legislative elections to field their candidates according to their party lists as people will elect deputies for 98 seats in the parliament as 70% of deputies have been elected from the lists of political parties and 30% of deputies from the candidates who are not on the list of the political parties and they compete individually.

Aq Jol, Amanat, Auyl, Baytaq, National, People’s Party and Republica are seven qualified political parties which have lists in the election.

To be eligible to run for the seat in the Mazhilis, a candidate must be a citizen of Kazakhstan, be at least 25 years of age, and should also have resided in Kazakhstan for the past ten years, he said, adding that a candidate for the seat in the maslikhat must also be a citizen of Kazakhstan, live in the region the candidate wants to represent, and be at least 20 years of age.

Mr. Orazbay went on to say that Kazakhstan has invited observers for its election from 34 countries who are mainly heads of election commissions in their own countries.

He stated that to participate in the observation of the early parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan, invitations were sent on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to 10 international organizations: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, CIS Executive Committee, CIS Inter-parliamentary Assembly, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Organization of Turkic States, and Parliamentary Assembly of the Turkic States.

Orazbay said that CEC has so far accredited 111 international observers for the elections from 3 international organizations (the OSCE ODIHR, the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the CIS member states, CIS observer mission) and 16 foreign states(PRC, the Kingdom of Netherlands, the State of Palestine, the Republic of Korea, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Kingdom of Thailand, the Republic of Armenia, Georgia, French Republic, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Great Britain, the Slovak Republic, the Republic of Estonia).

The election will be an acid test for Kazakhstan for experiencing new era and political development which can propel this country towards prosperity something that President Tokayev is determined to happen by recent drastic changes in political system and behaviors of the country.