ASTANA: Seven political parties in Kazakhstan submitted their party lists with a total of 283 candidates to the Central Election Commission (CEC) to participate in the March 19 elections to the Mazhilis, the lower chamber of the Kazakh Parliament, as the nomination period ended on Feb. 8 at 6 p.m., announced CEC Deputy Chair Konstantin Petrov during their meeting on Feb. 9 in Astana.
The Amanat Party, which received the majority of seats in the 2021 Mazhilis elections after winning 71.09 percent of votes, submitted 90 candidates, the highest among all the other parties.
The Aq Zhol Democratic Party submitted 54 candidates, the Auyl People’s Democratic Patriotic Party – 25 candidates, the Baitak green party – 18 candidates, the National Social Democratic Party – 19 candidates, the People’s Party of Kazakhstan – 52 candidates, and the Respublica party – 25 candidates.
“A political party had no right to include persons who were not party members in the party lists. The number of people included in the party list should not exceed the established number of deputy mandates distributed among political parties by 30 percent. This is a maximum of 90 people. It could also have been less. The parties themselves determined how many people to include in the party list,” said Petrov.
The elections on March 19 to the Mazhilis and maslikhats, local representative bodies, will take place under the new rules stemming from the changes to the Constitution adopted last year.
For the first time since 2004, 29 out of 98 deputies in the chamber will be elected from single-mandate districts.