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Kazakhstan kicks off presidential election
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-04 15:42 E-VOTING TECHNOLOGY FROM BELARUS
Early results from a controversial Belarus-designed electronic voting system
that is used alongside paper ballots are expected on Monday morning, election
officials have said.
The opposition has said it will not break the law by arranging spontaneous
demonstrations against alleged vote-rigging like those that swept through
Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and ousted long-serving leaders.
But the authorities have not taken any chances, closing the border with
neighbour Kyrgyzstan and issuing statements in recent weeks saying they would
come down hard on any disorder.
Tuyakbai, 58, running for opposition alliance For a Just Kazakhstan, has
focused his campaign on corruption scandals under Nazarbayev and his family's
business interests.
His first step as president would be to cut presidential terms to five years
from seven and limit presidents to one term, he says. "Power corrupts people,"
said Nikolai, a 60-year-old doctor who said he voted for Tuyakbai. "Fifteen
years in power is way too long ... At least Tuyakbai will try to fight
corruption."
Three other candidates are also running, including Alikhan Baimenov, a former
labour minister who has broken away from the main opposition bloc.
The only parliamentary seat that the opposition won in a flawed vote last
year was awarded to him on a party list system, but he did not take it up in
protest.
In Astana, Oktobrina, a retired doctor said she voted for Nazarbayev due to
his economic reforms.
"Just look around you, people have really started to live better here, look
at how well they are dressed and how many cars there are," she said.
But in the more opposition-minded Almaty, Nina, also a pensioner, said: "I
find it difficult to approve of Nazarbayev's inner circle and the fact there was
so much dirt thrown at Tuyakbai on television."
Asked how he voted, one young man, reflecting how much the Ukrainian and
Georgian "revolutions" have rocked the former Soviet Union, joked: "Yushchenko",
the victor in Ukraine's Orange Revolution last year.
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