Exit polls point to Adilet’s landslide in Kazakhstan’s elections
Three different exit polls show the Adilet party winning over 70% in the first vote for Kazakhstan’s new one-chamber parliament. The real suspense is further down the ticket, where four smaller parties polled between 5 and 6.4%, close enough to the entry threshold for the final count to reshape the chamber.
The striking feature is not simply the size of Adilet’s projected victory, but how closely the three polls agree. They gave the party between 70.7% and 72.3%, a spread of just 1.6 percentage points, according to Kursiv Kazakhstan.
If the official results follow that pattern, the newly formed party will dominate the 145-seat Kurultai. Adilet was established by allies of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and absorbed the previously dominant Amanat party earlier this year.
The SOCIS-A institute gave Adilet the lowest of the three estimates at 70.7%. The Institute of Eurasian Integration put it at 71.8%, while the Institute of Public Policy recorded 72.3%.
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Four parties hover near the threshold
All three placed the Auyl party second, with between 6.2% and 6.4%. Respublica followed with 5.2% to 5.5%, while Ak Zhol received between 5.1% and 5.4%.
The National Social Democratic Party was closest to the edge, polling exactly 5% in two surveys and 5.2% in the third. Under Kazakh election laws, parties need at least 5% of valid votes to enter the Kurultai. Even a modest difference between an exit poll and the official count could therefore exclude one or more smaller parties.
Exit polls suggest two parties are unlikely to enter parliament. The People’s Party of Kazakhstan received between 2.8% and 3.2%, while the environmental Baitaq party polled no higher than 1.2%.
Between 2.1% and 2.6% of respondents had voted against all parties.
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Official results will decide who survives
Preliminary turnout reached 74.19%, with more than 9.35 million people receiving ballot papers, Kursiv Kazakhstan reported. Voting took place at 10,363 polling stations across Kazakhstan.
The count also includes ballots cast abroad. Kazakhstan opened 79 polling stations at diplomatic missions in 61 countries. By 7pm Astana time, 6,007 of the 11,402 registered overseas voters had taken part, although several stations were still open, according to a separate Kursiv report.
