Presidential elections were held in Kazakhstan on 20 November 2022. This was the seventh presidential election since Kazakhstan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Incumbent president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, an independent, was re-elected for a second term in a landslide, receiving 81% of the vote. His closest challenger, Jiguli Dairabaev of the Auyl Party, received just 3% of the vote, marking the first time since 2015 that all candidates other than the incumbent president failed to garner 5% or more of the vote. This was the first national election since 1999 in which the "against all" option was included on the ballot paper. It received 6% of the total vote. Voter turnout was 69%, the lowest ever in a Kazakh presidential election.
Originally scheduled for December 2024, President Tokayev called for a snap election in his September 2022 State of the Nation Address, proposing a constitutional amendment to set the presidential term to a single, nonrenewable seven-year term. He also announced his intention to run for a second term, raising concerns that the amendment, adopted after the election, could allow him to serve beyond the two-term limit, extending his time in office since his first election in 2019. To address these concerns, Tokayev’s proposed amendment was ratified into law before the vote, establishing the seven-year term limit. On 21 September he set the election date by decree for 20 November 2022.
A total of twelve candidates were nominated for the election, with six qualifying for the ballot. Among them were Qaraqat Äbden (National Alliance of Professional Social Workers) and Saltanat Tursynbekova (QA–DJ). For the first time, multiple female candidates appeared on the ballot. Tokayev was supported by the People’s Coalition, an electoral alliance of parliamentary parties including Amanat, Aq Jol, and the People’s Party, along with various public associations. Jiguli Dairabaev was nominated by the Auyl, the only pro-government party to contest the election. Nūrjan Ältaev, a former Amanat deputy and a member of the divided Coalition of Democratic Forces, was barred from running by court order. This left Nurlan Auesbaev as the only registered candidate from the self-proclaimed opposition Nationwide Social Democratic Party. Most of the candidates challenging Tokayev were seen as "pocket candidates" due to their relative obscurity and lack of popularity.
The elections followed the 2022 unrest and a constitutional referendum. Campaigns focused on issues like COVID-induced inflation, political reforms, democracy, and oligarchy. Other concerns included the use of the Kazakh language and socioeconomic issues related to agriculture, family life, and feminism. Protests questioning the legitimacy of the election were met with government crackdowns and prosecutions. Reports prevailed of internet outages, DDoS attacks, and pressure on independent media.
Tokayev was widely expected to win the election, and exit polls showed he received the majority of votes. He was declared the winner early on 21 November 2022, with the Central Election Commission officially certifying his victory on 22 November. Tokayev was inaugurated for his second term on 26 November at the Palace of Independence in Astana. Shortly after, he called for a January 2023 Senate election, dissolved the 7th Parliament of Kazakhstan, and set a legislative election for 19 March 2023.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) praised the election’s preparation but noted the lack of competition, emphasizing the need for laws to ensure "genuine pluralism".
Background
The previous presidential elections were held in 2019, which saw then-acting president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev officially elected as the second president of Kazakhstan. At that time, he was considered by numerous political observers to be a staunch loyalist for Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Nazarbayev had resigned in March 2019, after a series of pro-democracy protests. Nazarbayev continued to be viewed as the de facto leader of Kazakhstan due to his lifetime chairmanship of the Security Council as well as him carrying the constitutional title of "Elbasy" ("leader of the nation"), which allowed him to retain many post-presidential executive powers and significant influence over the government.
However, Tokayev began exerting his own political influence, starting with Dariga's dismissal from her Senatorial post in 2020. He also chaired the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan and later the ruling Amanat party, which were both previously chaired by Nazarbayev himself. Despite Tokayev's increasing self-empowerment, his presidency was criticised for falling short of international and democratic standards, bringing little change to Kazakhstan overall.
2021 legislative elections
Legislative elections to the Mazhilis were held in January 2021 for the first time under Tokayev's presidency. Prior to the vote, several laws were adopted in an attempt to develop a multi-party system in Kazakhstan. These included reducing the political party membership threshold for registration, formation of a parliamentary opposition and establishing a mandatory 30% woman and youth quota within the party list. However, no new political parties were registered as a result, thus leaving only six registered parties to compete in the legislative elections. The Nationwide Social Democratic Party, the only opposition party to qualify for the legislative ballot, boycotted the vote.
Despite Tokayev's prior pledges for a multi-party system, and expressed hopes for different parties to enter the Parliament, the composition of the newly elected 7th Parliament virtually remained the same compared to 2016. The ruling Nur Otan party retained its super-majority control of the lower house, the Mazhilis. The OSCE criticised the election as being uncompetitive and with lack of genuine choice. The 2016 legislative elections also saw the return of Dariga Nazarbayeva as an MP, which once again fueled speculations regarding Nazarbayev's post-presidential influence. As the 7th Parliament convened on 15 January, Tokayev unveiled a third package of reforms. He pledged to further develop the Kazakh political system, and to strengthen human rights.
2021 municipal elections
During the State of the Nation Address in 2020, Tokayev proposed for äkims (local leaders) of rural municipalities to be elected directly for the first time within the following year. To achieve this, Tokayev signed a presidential decree to implement his proposals on 14 September 2020. In early 2021, the parliament passed a series of bills that allowed independent and nominated candidates to run for municipal elections, which were subsequently signed into law by Tokayev.
With a total of 2,297 candidates vying for posts, 730 rural äkims were elected in a July 2021 general vote. Nur Otan overwhelmingly dominated the results, and other candidates encountered several problems. The Diplomat described the municipal elections as "another instance of cosmetic reform made in the name of Tokayev's 'listening state'".
Post-pandemic recovery and growing social discontent
The COVID-19 pandemic in Kazakhstan brought a series of socioeconomic, educational, health, and political upheavals. In response, the Kazakh government introduced a series of emergency measures. Human Rights Watch complained that COVID-19 "elevated inequality" and called for the Kazakh government to "urgently expand relief programs and provide stronger social protection."
At the beginning of 2021, the vaccination rollout in Kazakhstan began and initially fared poorly due to public skepticism and mistrust. To accelerate jab uptake, the Kazakh government introduced mandatory vaccination, testing and health pass requirements in public settings. These measures received mixed results: while they increased the vaccination rates in Kazakhstan, the result was also marred by massive use of fraudulent vaccine passports and unvaccinated people being miscounted as vaccinated. The controversial policy was also met with unsanctioned anti-vaccine protests in several cities.
Although the Kazakh economy had begun recovering in late 2020 and eventually reached its pre-pandemic real GDP growth rate of 3.5% by October 2021, it was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to low oil prices and domestic activity. This resulted in Kazakhstan facing an inflation surge, with the cost of food being the most impacted, and an inflation rate of around 8.5% in late 2021. High inflation and rising prices led to a wave of labour strikes, especially in Western Kazakhstan. The Oxus Society's Central Asian Protest Tracker recorded more strikes in the first 6 months of 2021 than in the years 2018 – 2020 combined, indicating a rise in social discontent.
January 2022 unrest and purges of Nazarbayev's affiliates
On 1 January 2022, the Kazakh government lifted the price ceiling on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). This marked the final phase in their planned transition towards the price of LPG being determined by a digital market and led to a drastic increase in LPG prices. Due to LPG being subsidised during the transition period, many vehicle owners had switched to LPG and were now facing steep prices in addition to their increasing cost of living. Especially Kazakhs in the rather poor Mangystau Region were affected and with the social discontent rising even more, protests broke out in the oil-producing city of Zhanaozen on 2 January 2022. In the beginning, the protests in Western Kazakhstan were essentially low-key and small scale with the protesters demanding a price reduction of LPG. Those demands evolved into calls for political and socioeconomic reforms while the discontent spread to other Kazakh regions. In an attempt to appease the public, President Tokayev ordered the government to reinstate a six-month price cap on LPG, petrol, diesel fuel, and basic food products, as well as including a moratorium on the prices of home utilities, along with a rent subsidy for low-income residents. He also urged Kazakh citizens not to disturb public order and that all legitimate demands by the protesters would be considered. However, Tokayev's concessions failed to subdue the anger and by the third night of ongoing protests, the demonstrations turned into riots. The first and largest city in which riots broke out was Almaty, where violent clashes between protesters and government forces lead to gunfire and looting taking place all over the city. Various government buildings across Kazakhstan were stormed and set on fire and there were reports of internet blackouts. In response to the spreading of anarchy, President Tokayev enacted a state of emergency and dismissed PM Asqar Mamin's government. He also requested the intergovernmental military-allied Collective Security Treaty Organization for peacekeeping intervention and authorised deadly force to be used against protesters as part of a "counterterrorist operation".The aftermath of the massive unrest reportedly left 225 people dead and over 2,600 injured, as well as damage estimated at more than $2 billion. Due to its severity, the unrest became infamously known as "Bloody January" (). Many local and international human rights groups reported the Kazakh government's subsequent use of prison torture, ill-treatment, and custody deaths regarding over 10,000 detainees which included protesters, journalists, human rights activists and bystanders. During that period, the Kazakh government was criticised for failing to conduct a proper independent investigation of civilian deaths during the unrest and essentially refused to publish the official list of unrest victims until August 2022. The published list only provided the last names and initials of the victims' names instead of fully detailed information and in turn, raised the death toll higher.