Kazakhstan: Voters Back Nazarbayev, Question Lack of Alternatives

As voters go to the polls in Kazakhstan today, no one doubts that this is a one-horse race. The non-competitive presidential campaign eloquently ended as one challenger actually cast his vote for incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev. In a farcical moment, environmentalist Mels Yeleusizov admitted that he hadn’t bothered to vote for himself but had voted for his opponent.

The competition is hardly cutthroat, and voters leaving polling stations in central Almaty overwhelmingly said they’d voted for the president, who enjoys genuine public popularity. “We voted for Nazarbayev because we like his policy and his work,” businessman Zaynulla Ibragimov said after casting his vote with his wife.

Some Nazarbayev supporters cited one key factor motivating their choice: the lack of an alternative candidate because genuine opposition politicians refused to stand. “I voted for the leader. I don’t believe there to be any alternative candidates,” said Muslima, a businesswoman who gave only her first name. “He does a lot for the people, though there are minuses, to be honest.” Among them she named corruption scandals involving Nazarbayev’s relatives and a lack of political debate.

Even while backing Nazarbayev, voters voiced a litany of complaints, ranging from graft and bribe-taking to low pensions and rural poverty.

Casting his vote in Astana, Nazarbayev said much had been achieved over his two decades of rule, but Kazakhstan still faced “huge challenges of modernization, so today’s vote by our citizens will define our unity and our aspiration to do everything intended.”

Calls by some opposition forces to boycott the vote appeared to have fallen on deaf ears: by 4 p.m., with four hours left until polls closed, turnout already stood at an astonishing 76.9 percent according to election officials. 

First-time voter Zhibek Iskhanova, 18, said she’d voted for Nazarbayev because there was “no worthy competition.” “We’re not developing badly from a financial and economic point of view,” she said. “I’m not interested in politics.”

Another first-time voter, 20-year-old Almaz Mukashev, said he’d voted “for the leader.” Why? “I don’t know.”

Student Olzhas Smailov, also voting for the first time, said he wanted to vote against all candidates and had “a small shock” when he realized that the voting system didn’t allow that option. “I don’t think this was a real presidential race. There was no worthy opponent,” Smailov said after casting a blank voting slip into the ballot box in protest.

He objected to what he characterized as a virtually invisible election campaign marked by a lack of political discussion, although “there are a lot of problems, a lot of things to discuss.”

With nowhere to channel a protest vote, some are calling for an “against all” box to be added to the ballot paper. 

Campaigners from the Rukh pen Til (Spirituality and Language) organization and performance artist Kanat Ibragimov staged a small protest outside the Electoral Commission’s Almaty office, symbolically casting votes “against all” into a homemade ballot box as activist Zhanbolat Mamay called the polls “a farce.”

For Nazarbayev, though, the elections are “historic, because this year is the 20th anniversary of our independence,” he said. 

They are also historic for a less-memorable reason: April 3 marks the first time since 1991 – when Nazarbayev stood unchallenged – that Kazakhstan has held a president election without offering any real alternative candidates.