Adilet Projected to Win 72% in Kazakhstan’s First Kurultai Election

Kazakhstan's ruling Adilet party was projected on Sunday to have won about 72% of the vote in the country's first election to the Kurultai, the new unicameral Parliament established under a constitutional overhaul that took effect on July 1. Three exit polls released at midnight local time indicated that four other parties had cleared the 5% threshold required to enter Parliament.

The Central Election Commission is expected to announce official results within 12 hours of the polls closing. Vote counting was under way after turnout reached 74.19% when polling stations closed at 8 p.m. Astana time.

The election was held at more than 10,000 polling stations across the country and at diplomatic missions in 61 countries. It was the first parliamentary vote in Kazakhstan's post-Soviet history conducted under a fully unicameral system.

The Kurultai replaces the former bicameral Parliament, which comprised the Senate and the Mazhilis, with a single 145-seat chamber. Members will serve five-year terms and be elected through proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency. All seven parties contesting the election were registered organisations approved by the government. Independent candidates and opposition movements not aligned with the Tokayev administration were not allowed to participate.

Three exit polls put Adilet's result at approximately 71% to 72%. Auyl, the People's Democratic Patriotic Party, was projected to receive 6.4%, Respublica 5.4%, the Nationwide Social Democratic Party 5.2% and Aq Jol 5.1%.

The People's Party received 3% and the green Baytaq party 1%, leaving both below the threshold. A further 2.1% of voters chose "against all", a formal option on the ballot.

Adilet's dominant position in the new Parliament was not seriously in doubt before election day. The party was formed earlier this year through the absorption of Amanat, the pro-government party that had dominated Kazakhstan's political landscape under both former President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The rebranding was intended to signal a break with the Nazarbayev era while preserving institutional continuity. It followed a series of constitutional and political steps that have progressively removed Nazarbayev's formal influence. Earlier this week, the former president was officially stripped of his right to address the nation on foreign policy matters, completing what analysts have described as the formal closure of the Nazarbayev chapter in Kazakhstan's public life.

The constitutional changes behind Sunday's election were approved in a referendum earlier this year and represented the most significant restructuring of Kazakhstan's political institutions since independence in 1991.

The stated rationale for adopting a unicameral system was to streamline lawmaking, reduce overlap between the two chambers and speed up the legislative process. Critics and independent analysts offered a different assessment, arguing that a parliament elected entirely through party lists in a single nationwide constituency, with no independent candidates and all participating parties operating within government-sanctioned political limits, concentrates power more efficiently than the previous structure while retaining the formal trappings of democratic competition.

The new constitutional framework also gives President Tokayev the authority to nominate a vice president, subject to approval by the Kurultai. Analysts have interpreted the provision as a potential mechanism for managing succession.

No immediate announcement on the appointment is expected, but the provision has drawn considerable attention from observers of Kazakh politics, who see it as a structural tool for ensuring political continuity beyond Tokayev's current term.

International observers said Sunday's vote represented more than a change in the structure of Kazakhstan's legislature. They said the new political system would ultimately be judged on its ability to strengthen accountability, ensure institutional stability and create a predictable environment for citizens and investors.

Western governments and international monitoring organisations had raised concerns before the election about the exclusion of genuinely independent political forces, the absence of opposition candidates and the short interval between the constitutional referendum and the vote. Those concerns were reflected in the composition of the observer delegations, which included representatives of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Its preliminary assessment is expected in the coming days.

For Kazakhstan's approximately 19 million citizens, the election's practical importance will lie partly in the tasks facing the new Parliament. The Kurultai's first session will convene as the country deals with a complex economic environment shaped by fluctuating oil revenues, the ongoing adjustment of trade and investment ties following Western sanctions on Russia, through which much of Kazakhstan's export traffic passes, and domestic expectations generated by Tokayev's "New Kazakhstan" reform agenda.

Whether the new unicameral structure accelerates meaningful policy change or simply rationalises the existing concentration of executive power will be determined not by Sunday's vote, but by the legislative record that follows.

Official results are expected from the Central Election Commission before Monday morning Astana time. If they confirm the exit-poll projections, Adilet will hold a commanding majority in the 145-seat Kurultai, while the four parties that cleared the threshold will divide the remaining seats without gaining significant legislative leverage.

The final composition of the new Parliament, including the candidates from each party list who receive mandates, will be announced by party leaderships once the seat allocations are confirmed. Under Kazakhstan's electoral rules, that process follows rather than precedes the CEC's formal declaration of the results.

Originally published on HNGN