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Kazakhstan’s ruling Nur Otan gets almost 81%

Three parties received seats in the lower house of parliament

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

ASTANA, January 17 (Itar-Tass) — Kazakhstan’s central election commission has announced the official results of the early parliamentary elections of January 15.

Three parties received seats in the lower house of parliament.

The ruling party Nur Otan led by President Nursultan Nazarbayev has won an overwhelming victory getting 80.99 percent of votes. The democratic party Ak Zhol received 7.47 percent of votes and the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan came third with 7.19 percent.

Another four parties running in the race gained no more than 2 percent of votes on the average.

Nur Otan will get 83 seats in the lower house of parliament, Ak Zhol – eight seats and the Communist People’s Party – 7 seats.

Parliamentarians that under the effective Constitution are elected by the People’s Assembly will get another nine seats.

The voter turnout was 75.45 percent.

Kazakhstan’s central election commission planned to make public the official returns no earlier than January 22, but it placed them on its website already on Tuesday. On January 18 these results will be officially published. Within a month’s time the president will announce the date of the first parliamentary session of Mazhilis of the fifth convocation.

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