On January 17, Kazakhstan’s Central Electoral Commission made public the official results of the early parliamentary contest which took place two days earlier. As expected, the governing party Nur Otan received wide support from the country’s population, scoring almost 81 percent and obtaining 83 seats out of 107. The two other parties that managed to overcome the 7-percent barrier in order to qualify for entry into the Parliament’s lower chamber, the Majilis, include the Democratic Party “Ak Zhol” (7.47 percent and 8 seats) and the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan (7.19 percent and 7 seats). The overall turnout is estimated at around 75 percent. At the same time, Central Electoral Commission officials stated that more than 70 percent of the adult citizens living in the town of Zhanaozen, which was recently the scene of violent clashes between oil industry workers and police forces, gave their votes to Nur Otan.

To nobody’s surprise, international observers to Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) recognized the voting procedures as fully transparent and compliant with national legal norms and standards. According to SCO experts, “technical deficiencies which came to light in the course of the vote could not have considerably impacted its overall outcome.” In contrast to these positive assessments, the Election Observation Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) pointed, in its preliminary report, to a number of inconsistencies with international standards and fundamental democratic principles. The report further reads that “the authorities did not provide the necessary conditions for the conduct of genuinely pluralistic elections,” as “several political parties were blocked from standing and a number of candidates were de-registered without due process.” On its part, the U.S. Department of State joined the preliminary assessment that “a variety of issues caused this election to fall short of the international standards to which Kazakhstan has committed itself.”

Speaking at the Nur Otan Political Council on January 18, President Nazarbayev remarked that the victory of the pro-presidential party was the most visible evidence of the country’s various achievements, widely recognized by its citizens. He also promised not to invite anymore in the future those international experts and observers “hired by somebody and criticizing [our] elections.” The government-controlled national press did not make any reference to the critical evaluation given by the OSCE mission, instead focusing on the positive pronouncements of CIS and SCO observers.

Earlier in December, the Rukhaniyat party joined by Kazakh nationalists under the leadership of Mukhtar Shakhanov was excluded from the list of contenders after a complaint had been filed by its former leader, Altynshash Zhaganova. According to Zhaganova, who relinquished her post as party leader in March 2010, serious violations of the Kazakh law were committed by her successor when candidates were designated to the Majilis. In response to this criticism, Rukhaniyat’s present-day leaders suggested that this exclusion might have been retaliation for their visit to Zhanaozen in the wake of the December 16 unrest. The Central Electoral Commission dealt another blow to the list of the main opposition party OSDP Azat, which lost two of its heavyweights, Bulat Abilov and Guljan Ergaliyeva, a week before the election. Ergaliyeva previously ran the popular newspaper Svoboda Slova (Freedom of speech) opposed to the government.

The first session of the fifth Majilis took place on January 20, when President Nazarbayev addressed the newly elected deputies with words of warning about the next wave of the financial crisis, also promising to pay more attention to social issues. He expressed his hope that a three-party Parliament would be more competitive and dynamic than the previous one dominated by a single political party. On the same day, Prime Minister Karim Massimov’s government received a vote of confidence, meaning that Massimov will automatically retain his position. Later, President Nazarbayev signed a series of decrees providing for a reshuffling of the cabinet of ministers. In a move to modernize public services, he abolished the Ministry of Information and Communications, transferring its functions to the new Ministry of Transport and Communications. The Ministry of Tourism and Sport was also abolished and replaced by the Agency for Sports and Physical Culture. The former governors of Karaganda and Pavlodar regions (in Central and Northern Kazakhstan) entered the government, while the former Minister of Justice will now be heading the Agency for fighting economic and corruption crime, better known as the Financial Police. It is not at all clear whether President Nazarbayev’s son-in-law Timur Kulibayev, who was dismissed in late December from the chairmanship of the Samruk-Kazyna Sovereign Welfare Fund, has any chances of recovering his position. At present, most experts believe that Nazarbayev has opted for a status quo, renewing his trust in the government and the presidential administration.