Election commission: Nazarbayev wins early presidential election in Kazakhstan

ASTANA, April 27. /TASS/. Incumbent President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev won the country’s presidential election having secured a landslide victory with 97.19% of the votes cast on Sunday, according to preliminary results provided by the Central Election Commission (CEC) on Monday.

The CEC said Nazarbayev’s closest contenders Turgun Syzdykov of the Communist People’s Party and Abelgazi Kusainov, the chairman of the Trade Union Federation and a self-nominee, secured 1.6 and 0.7% of the votes respectively.

This was not a surprising result for Nazarbayev, 74, who has been at the helm of Kazakhstan for over 25 years now. In his first all-nation election in 1991 he received 98.7%, in 2005 his landslide victory based on the 91.15% of the votes and in 2011 a total of 95% of votes were cast in his favor.

According to the preliminary results of the CEC, voter’s turnout in Sunday’s early presidential election totaled 95.22% comparing with 89.9% in 2011.

Speaking in the early hours of Monday, Nazarbayev said that "without such nationwide trust it would have been difficult working on the implementation" of the set tasks.

"All this obliges to work with double energy for the sake of the future and prosperity of our country," Nazarbayev said.

Under the law, Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission is to announce preliminary results of the elections within 48 hours after the end of the voting. Final results are to be officially announced by May 3.