1994 Kazakh legislative election

Legislative elections were held in Kazakhstan on 7 March 1994, alongside local elections. The People's Union of Kazakhstan Unity emerged as the largest party with 33 of the 177 seats, although 64 independents were also elected. Supporters of the President won a clear majority of seats, and around 60% of seats were won by ethnic Kazakhs. Following the elections, Sergey Tereshchenko was reappointed Prime Minister. Voter turnout was 73.5%.^[1]

Background

The elections were the first to the Supreme Kenges created by the 1993 constitution; elections for the former 360-seat Supreme Soviet had last taken place in March 1990, prior to independence in December 1991. The outgoing Supreme Soviet dissolved itself on 13 December 1993, five days after having set the election date.

Campaign

The President's People's Union of Kazakhstan Unity was challenged by several newly formed groups, especially the People's Congress of Kazakhstan. After a screening process, 754 candidates were approved to contest the 135 single-member constituencies. There were also 65 candidates for the 42 "state list" seats.

The campaign lasted two-months and was focussed on the economy; Nazarbayev committed to the free-market system and continuing reforms, particularly in the banking and tax spheres, in order to attract foreign investment.^[2]

Conduct

The elections were monitored by foreign observers, including the CSCE. The CSCE report called into question whether the elections had been free and fair.^[2]

Results



Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	People's Union of Kazakhstan Unity			33	New
	Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan			11	New
	People's Congress of Kazakhstan			9	New
	Socialist Party of Kazakhstan			8	New
	Peasants Union of Kazakhstan			4	New
	Social Movement "Harmony"			4	New
	Democratic Committee of Human Rights			1	New
	Union of Kazakhstan's Youth			1	New
	Communist Party of Kazakhstan			0	New
	Independents			64	+46
State list				42	New
Total				177	–183

Valid votes		7,017,457	99.82
Invalid/blank votes		12,593	0.18
Total votes		7,030,050	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		9,561,534	73.52
Source: Nohlen et al.

References

^ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p420 ISBN 0-19-924958-X
^ ^a ^b Elections held in 1994 IPU

External links

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[1] Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p420 ISBN 0-19-924958-X

[IPU-2] Elections held in 1994 IPU

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