Kazakhstan held parliamentary elections on 19 September and will hold a presidential election in 2006. There are currently 12 officially registered political parties in the country. Under legislation adopted in July 2002, the 19 political parties then in existence were required to undergo re-registration and meet new criteria. The new law, proposed by deputies from the pro-presidential party Otan, raised the number of members a party needed to register from 3,000 to 50,000, with branches in all of Kazakhstan's 14 provinces (Kazakh -- Oblys, Russian --Oblast) and at least 700 registered members in each of the 14 provinces.

When the re-registration process was announced, President Nursultan Nazarbaev said that there were too many political parties in Kazakhstan that could claim only a small amount of supporters and if those that existed wanted to continue political activities they needed to merge to form parties sufficiently large to meet the established criteria.

Of the original 19 parties registered in July 2002 when the re-registration rules were implemented, only seven had met the new requirements by 15 April 2003 when the Justice Ministry announced those parties it had registered. Five more parties have managed to meet registration requirements in the period since then and are included on the ballot for the September elections.

Heading into October's elections, the Otan party is widely acknowledged to be the largest party. There are 77 seats in the Mazhilis, the lower house of parliament, of which 10 are awarded by party list and the remaining 67 decided by polls in single-mandate districts. The president's daughter, Dariga Nazarbaeva, has suggested the number of seats available by party list should be increased. The term of a Mazhilis deputy is five years.

Local and regional officials, who until the local elections of September 2003 were chosen by the president, are responsible for selecting deputies for 32 of the 39 seats available in the Senate, or upper house of parliament. The president chooses the other seven deputies in the Senate. Senate terms are six years, with elections being held once every three years to replace half the deputies. These local and regional officials are also responsible for forming smaller election commissions to oversee the conduct of campaigning, the elections, and the tabulation of votes.

The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) deemed the 1999 parliamentary and presidential elections in Kazakhstan as falling short of meeting international standards.

The OSCE's preliminary assessment of the parliamentary elections of 10 October 1999 noted that there was interference by executive authorities. Opposition party candidates complained they were not given the same access to the public or venues for meetings that local and regional officials gave to pro-government candidates. The parties registered to compete in those elections were: the People's Congress Party, Communist Party, People's Cooperative, Republican People's Party, Civic Party, Labor Party, Revival Party, Azamat Party and the Otan party.

Otan took the most votes with 30.89 percent, nearly double that of the party that came in second, the Communist Party with 17.75 percent. Only 62.5 percent of eligible voters (5,262,489 of 8,411,757) cast ballots. In 47 single-mandate districts fewer than the requisite 50 percent of voters participated and run-off elections were required on 24 October.

The presidential election of January 1999 was criticized more than the October parliamentary elections. In late September 1998, four members of parliament proposed moving the date of presidential elections forward. Nazarbaev initially rejected the idea, but on 5 October, deputies met behind closed doors with Nazarbaev and convinced him to move the presidential election ahead, and amend the constitution so that a presidential term would be seven, not five, years.

On 7 October 1998, a joint session of parliament approved an early election, passed amendments extending the presidential term to seven years, and the term of Mazhilis deputies from four to five years, and Senate deputies from five to six years.

The next day at a joint session of parliament, the deputies named 10 January 1999 as the date for presidential elections, removed the restriction a president cannot be older than 65 of age and also removed the two-term limit a president could remain in office.

On 9 October 1998, presidential advisor Akezhan Kazhegeldin, the country's prime minister from 1994 to 1997, resigned in protest at early elections, and on 14 October 1998 he declared himself a candidate for the presidency.

Opposition parties complained, pointing out not only that three months was insufficient time to mount a campaign for the nation's top post, but also that a referendum held on 30 April 1995 had already extended Nazarbaev's term by five years, by-passing the election scheduled for 1996.

Though the race seemed like it would be a contest between the incumbent Nazarbaev and former prime minister Kazhegeldin, a Kazakh court on 20 October 1998, found Kazhegeldin guilty of participating in "mass gatherings and sessions of an unregistered organization." Kazhegeldin had attended an opposition rally prior to the announcement of the early election and despite numerous protests from Kazhegeldin, international rights organizations, and individual governments, the court ruling remained in force and Kazhegeldin was barred from competing for what amounted to a misdemeanor offense. Chapter 188. 2 of the electoral code, prohibiting a candidate from running because of a misdemeanor, was abolished prior to parliamentary elections later in 1999.

Nazarbaev won the January 1999 election, easily defeating opponents Gani Kasymov, Serikbolsyn Abdildin, and Engels Gabbasov. U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said two days after the poll that the election had "tarnished Kazakhstan's reputation."

Days after the presidential election, Nazarbaev's campaign manager Sergei Tereshchenko, also Kazakhstan's prime minister from 1991 to 1994, announced that the campaign team would continue its work and form the Otan party to nominate Nazarbaev for the presidency in 2006. Kazhegeldin formed the Republican People's Party just weeks after that.

Elections and referendums in the early years after independence

Nazarbaev first became president of the Republic of Kazakhstan on 1 December 1991, which he won in an uncontested election held two weeks before the country had officially declared independence. There were also parliamentary elections: one in March 1994, the other in December 1995.

On 8 December 1993, the Supreme Soviet, left over from Kazakhstan's Soviet days, ceded legislation to President Nazarbaev and voted to dissolve the body at the end of the session.

Elections to the 177-seat unicameral parliament were held on 7 March 1994. President Nazarbaev appointed 42 deputies himself. A Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe representative Elizabeth Winship said the elections failed to conform to international standards.

For Nazarbaev the election seemingly failed to provide the deputies he believed necessary to push through reforms. In October 1994, when Prime Minister Tereshchenko released a report that criticized economic reform in the country and proposed a plan to bring the country out of crisis, Nazarbaev asked Tereshchenko's cabinet to resign. Deputy Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin was appointed to replace Tereshchenko. However, parliament remained obstinate.

In early 1995, Tatyana Kvyatkovskaya, who lost her bid for a seat in parliament in March 1994, lodged a protest with the Central Election Committee. She charged that two rules set down by the election committee -- one concerning the system by which citizens of Kazakhstan living outside the country were allowed to vote, the other concerning the divisions of the districts themselves -- were unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Court took up the matter and, on 6 March 1995, made public its decision that several of the Central Election Committee's resolutions were unconstitutional. Therefore, the court said, the elections were not legitimate. Nazarbaev said he was surprised, vetoed the decision, and sent it back to the court. The court overruled the president on 10 March and said the decision was already in force.

On 11 March 1995, Nazarbaev told a session of parliament he had sent a request to the Constitutional Court for an official explanation. But when the parliament submitted a motion for Nazarbaev to dissolve the court, the Kazakh president said, "I do not have to sign the proposals of an assembly that no longer exists."

Parliament was dissolved, though protesting deputies led by the head of the People's Congress Party Olzhas Suleymenov, continued a public protest for several days.

On 24 March 1995, a group known as the Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan, claiming to represent all the different ethnic groups in the country and reportedly formed days before the dissolution of parliament, submitted a proposal that a national referendum be held to extend Nazarbaev's term in office.

In the absence of parliament, Nazarbaev ruled by decree -- an "enlightened dictatorship" one diplomat called it. On 27 March 1995, he ordered the referendum on extending his term in office be held on 29 April 1995.

According to the official results, 91.3 percent of eligible voters cast ballots and of those 95.4 percent voted in favor of extending Nazarbaev's term as president.

In early May 1995, Nazarbaev said the country needed a new constitution and announced that a conference in June would discuss the proposed constitutional changes, which would be put to national referendum.

On 30 August, the referendum was held and the Central Election Commission reported that 90 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots and 89 percent approved of the changes. Some of the changes gave Nazarbaev more powers; one created a bicameral parliament -- the Mazhilis and Senate.

Indirect elections to the Senate, originally 47 seats, were held on 5 December 1995 and elections to the Mazhilis on 9 December, with run-off elections on 23 December 1995.