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Kazakhstan’s first election to a new unicameral Parliament on Sunday gave a commanding victory to the newly formed, pro-presidential Adilet, or “Justice,” party, in a vote that press-freedom advocates said was held amid mounting pressure on independent journalists.
Adilet won 71.17 percent of the vote, or about 6.5 million ballots, while turnout was 74 percent, according to results released Tuesday by Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission. Four other parties cleared the five-percent threshold.
None of the seven parties that took part in the election could be seen as opposing President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s policies, according to international observers.
The new 145-seat legislative body is elected entirely through a proportional representation system based on party lists.
The new unicameral Parliament, called the Kurultai, was established earlier this year following constitutional reforms promoted by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. It replaced Kazakhstan’s former two-chamber parliament, abolishing the upper house and the mixed electoral system under which voters could also choose candidates directly, rather than only from party lists.
“I pin great hopes on the election of Kurultai and believe that it will give a major impetus to the development of our country. New faces have appeared, and new ideas have emerged,” Tokayev said on Sunday after casting his vote.
But independent observers said the groundwork for the election had been laid in advance through the “cleansing of the information landscape” of the country’s most vocal critics and journalists.
Nazira Darimbet, head of the human rights organization Adil Soz, said these were the first elections in her memory to have “passed in grave silence, as quietly as a graveyard,” without independent journalists able to document violations.
“All this is connected with unprecedented pressure on journalists, which will most likely only intensify,” Darimbet told OCCRP.
Five days before the election, former editor-in-chief of Orda, Gulnara Bazhkenova, was sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzlement, illegal business activities and disseminating false information. Her sentence was deferred for two years because she has a minor child.
She was also banned from working as a journalist or holding leadership positions for five years. Bazhkenova denied the allegations.
“Yes, the fact that I paid part of the salaries in cash is a violation, but I did not steal anything. Accusing a person of something they didn’t do is a terrible sin. There is a Heavens (Higher) Court, and I know it is on my side,” she said in her final statement to the court.
Journalist and political observer Azamat Omarov, who runs the YouTube channel “Akhual Segodnya” (“Today’s Situation”), was arrested in July for allegedly “inciting social, national, racial, or religious discord.”
“Omarov made a satirical video about the new Constitution and elections as well as critical remarks about the authorities and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev,” said Darimbet.
Omarov’s channel is currently unavailable.
Journalists Lukpan Akhmedyarov and Dinara Yegeubayeva have both been banned from traveling abroad.
Akhmedyarov was charged with spreading “false information.” Colleagues and activists believe the charges relate to his posting information he found on a Ukrainian government website that claimed Kazakh citizens were fighting in Ukraine on the Russian side.
“Why are they going to try him for false information if he took it from an official website?” Darimbet wondered.
In Yegeubayeva’s case, a cyclist crashed into her car, after which a criminal case was opened against her. The cyclist is demanding around $6,400 in damages.
“All of these sentences and cases lead to the main goal of the authorities: self-censorship and intimidation of journalists and the media,” said the head of Adil Soz.
Diana Okremova, head of the Legal Media Center, an organization that protects journalists, expressed similar concerns.
“By election day, everyone was simply afraid to say or do anything out of line,” she told OCCRP.
Okremova said activists and journalists faced not only legal pressure but also attempts to block their social media accounts.
“The online space was practically the only opportunity to express their opinions. But after a series of attacks, it has been practically destroyed,” she said.
Her own Facebook profile is currently unavailable due to “copyright infringement” after she published details about an access-to-information case the Legal Media Center filed against the Ministry of Culture.
The parliamentary election was part of constitutional changes introduced earlier this year that effectively reset Tokayev’s current presidential term, allowing him to run again in 2029 for another seven-year term.
Tokayev said it was too early to speculate on whether he would run again in 2029.
“We are literally walking along the edge of a cliff, yet we have managed to ensure peaceful domestic conditions that allowed us to develop. So let us meet again — perhaps next year I will give you a more specific answer,” he told a Vlast reporter.
