NUR-SULTAN – The Kazakh Central Election Commission (CEC) accredited a total of 398 foreign observers ahead of Kazakhstan’s Jan.10 parliamentary elections, CEC member Anastasia Schegortsova reported at the Jan. 4 commission meeting. The list included 322 observers from ten international organizations and 76 from 31 foreign countries.
Photo credit: the Kazakh Central Election Commission.
More than half of the observers from international organizations are representatives of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Executive Committee – 179 observers. The next biggest delegations of observers are from the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly – 48 observers, and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – 42.
There are also observers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (15), OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (9), Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking countries (9), Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States (7), Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (7), Organization of Islamic Cooperation (4), European Union Delegation to Kazakhstan (2).
Foreign countries from Asia, Europe, North America, and the Middle East are represented among the 398 observers. There are observers from the post-Soviet space – Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Russia, and Estonia; European countries – Romania, Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain; as well as from Mongolia, India, Philippines, Palestine, Canada, Maldives, Indonesia, and Jordan.
The accreditation of observers of foreign states and international organizations ended Jan. 4 at 6 p.m. local time, five days before voting day in accordance with the Constitutional Law.
CEC Chair Berik Imashev stressed that the CEC discussed the accreditation status of the foreign observers at seven commission meetings.
The elections of deputies of the Majilis (lower house of the Kazakh Parliament) and maslikhats (local representative bodies) will take place Jan. 10.
