The Senate elections will take place in Kazakhstan today. Election of senators will start at 10:00 am Astana time (in some regions – at 11:00). By this time all over the country about 3 thousand deputies of maslikhats of different levels will gather at polling stations to elect 16 members to the upper house of Parliament.
The Central Election Commission registered 39 Senate candidates, including 14 nominated by local representative bodies (maslikhats) and 25 self-nominated ones. According to the CEC, the average age of candidates is 54 years, while the youngest is Erlan Bazekenov, self-nominated from the Aktobe region, born in 1981, and the oldest – Erbolat Sadvakassov, self-nominated from Almaty, born in 1945.
Among the candidates are people of different nationalities, professions and political views, but there are no women among them. As Chairman of the Central Election Commission Kuandyk Turgankulov said, six women participated in the campaign for nomination of candidates. But they did not reach the finale for various reasons. Nevertheless, the President has the right to adjust the gender balance in the Senate.
“7 more deputies of the Senate will be appointed by the President. It has, perhaps, a single goal – to bring up weak points in the qualitative composition of the Senate whether an imbalance is related to the nationality, age or gender,” Turgankulov noted.
The preliminary results of the Senate elections will be announced today, by the end of the day. The final results Kuandyk Turgankulov promised to announce on August 22.
Full Article: Eng.Gazeta.kz – Senate elections under way in Kazakhstan.
