ASTANA – The Central Election Commission (CEC) held a briefing Feb. 12 devoted to the election campaign of deputies of the Mazhilis (lower house of Parliament) and maslikhats of Kazakhstan.
Speaking at the press conference, CEC member Marat Sarsembayev noted that the process of registration of party lists was continuing and will last until Feb.19. In his words, out of six submitted party lists, five were already registered.
The nomination of candidates for deputies of maslikhats is actively going on, Sarsembayev said. According to information provided by the territorial election commissions of oblasts and the cities of Astana and Almaty, as of Feb. 12 there were 7,885 nominated candidates for deputies of maslikhats of all levels.
Out of this number, 866 candidates were nominated to 14 oblast level maslikhats, 34 to the Astana city maslikhat and 133 to the Almaty city maslikhat.
A total of 5,403 candidates were nominated to district maslikhats and 1,449 candidates were nominated to city level maslikhats across the country.
Thus, the average competition for one mandate in maslikhats is more than two people per mandate, Sarsembayev informed.
According to the speaker, political parties nominated 1.942 persons (24.6 percent), public organisations nominated 12 persons (0.2 percent) and 5,931 people (75.2 percent) were self-nominated.
Sarsembayev informed that among the candidates there are representatives of 40 nationalities. Male candidates make up 71.4 percent, whereas female candidates total 28.6 percent. Approximately 72.3 percent out of them have higher education. The average age of candidates is 43 years.
Sarsembayev said the candidates can also be divided by groups. Thus, 255 persons (3.2 percent) are workers of akimats and maslikhats, 3,653 (46.3 percent) persons are employees of state enterprises, institutions and organisations, 3,384 (42.9 percent) persons are employees of commercial structures, 135 (1.7 percent) persons are representatives of political parties and NGOs, 60 (0.8 percent) people are pensioners, 202 people (2.6 percent) are unemployed and 5 (0,1 percent) persons did not specify their place of work.
District election commissions have so far registered 1,096 candidates for deputies of maslikhats.
On Feb.16, the CEC held a drawing of the political parties that take part in the upcoming election for the Mazhilis on their order in the voting paper. Representatives of the parties themselves chose non-transparent envelopes with numbers ranging from one to six written on papers inserted in those envelopes in front of them.
As a result of the draw, the first in the list will be Nur Otan, then the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan (CPPK), followed by the Ak Zhol Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, the Birlik Party, the Nationwide Social Democratic Party (NSDP) and the Auyl Social Democratic Party.
