Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party took more than 80 percent of the vote in Sunday's polls, although two nominally opposition parties gained seats for the first time. The OSDP, the only clearly anti-government party, won just 1.59 percent. At the rally, the leaders of the OSDP set fire to printouts of official vote counts on the Republic Square. "They stink!" Amirzhan Kosanov, the party's general secretary, said of the vote counts. The party has refused to recognise the election results as valid.
International observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the vote "did not meet fundamental principles of democratic elections" and saw a lack of transparency in counting and cases of fraud.
Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev attends a forum of his Nur Otan party on Monday after the party scored a landslide victory with over 80 percent of the vote in parliamentary polls which observers said failed to meet democratic standards.
Bulat Abilov, the OSDP's co-chairman, said at the rally that the opposition had not asked its supporters to turn out, fearing police violence. "We received messages that they were preparing an operation using force, so we did not invite our supporters today. There are buses full of riot police with shields and batons around the square. That is their answer to our protest." He announced another protest for January 28 in central Almaty, saying that the opposition would seek permission from the authorities, but would go ahead even if it were not sanctioned. "We will come even if they repress us, even if they arrest us," said Abilov.
The polls were overshadowed by concerns about Kazakhstan's stability after December clashes between striking oil workers and security forces left 16 people dead in the Central Asian state's worst bloodshed since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Source: France24.
