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Kazakh election 'not democratic'
The OSCE says Mr Nazarbayev's
victory was not won fairly
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Sunday's presidential election in Kazakhstan
failed to meet international democratic standards,
Europe's main poll-monitoring body the OSCE has said.
Failings included ballot box stuffing, intimidation
of the opposition, and media bias, the OSCE said.
It said its 460 monitors had noted some improvements
from previous elections, but flaws "limited the
possibility for a meaningful competition".
President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in power since 1989,
won 91% of the vote.
"Regrettably, despite some efforts which were
undertaken to improve the process, the authorities did
not exhibit sufficient political will to hold a
genuinely good election," said Bruce George,
co-ordinator for observers from the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe.
In a strongly-worded statement, the OSCE said: "The
voting was generally calm and peaceful, but the
process deteriorated during the count, which was
viewed as bad or very bad in one out of four counts
observed.
"Unauthorised persons interfering in polling stations,
cases of multiple voting, ballot box stuffing and
pressure on students to vote were observed during
voting and during the count, observers saw tampering
with result protocols and a wide range of procedural
violations," it said.
Opposition fury
Main opposition candidate Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, who
secured just 6.64% of the vote according to official
results, alleged there had been "multiple violations".
"We will take all legal measures to protest the
official results of the voting and will press for this
election to be declared invalid," Mr Tuyakbai said on
Monday.
"The authoritarian regime of Nazarbayev is taking a
totalitarian turn," he said.
But President Nazarbayev insisted that the results
demonstrated the population's craving for the status
quo.
"We're talking not about revolutions but evolutions,"
he told reporters. "Kazakhstan voted for calmness and
stability."
The Kazakh poll was closely watched because elections
in some other former Soviet Union republics - Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan - led to uprisings which
overthrew their rulers.
However, Mr Nazarbayev pledged to pursue political
reform during his next seven years in power.
The president also said - before the election - that
his goal was for Kazakhstan to hold the OSCE
presidency in 2009.
Correspondents say the body's negative assessment of
Sunday's election will not help his case.
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