Landslide re-election for Nazarbayev, Opp cries foul

Despite the fraud claims, Nazarbayev, who has held powersince 1989, said the vote was clean and made clear he believed that he had put a stop to the ‘‘people’s revolutions’’ that have deposed veteran leaders in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.‘‘We’re talking not about revolutions but evolutions,’’ he told reporters.

He also dismissed any suggestion that the Soviet-style margin of victory — 91 per cent against less than 7 per cent for the main Opposition challenger — was in any way suspect in a country that has never held a vote judged free and fair.

‘‘Percentage points and democracy have nothing in common,’’he said after supporters celebrated his victory in a stadium in the windswept new capital Astana that he has built.

But, in Almaty, the Opposition cried foul.‘‘The results are just absurd,’’ Oraz Zhandosov, a manager for Opposition challenger Zharmakhan Tuyakbai’s For a Just Kazakhstan campaign team, said.

Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers were due to give their assessment of the poll in the world’s ninth largest country at 1000 GMT.

Nazarbayev came to power as the Communist Party head of Kazakhstan, then won presidential elections in 1991 with 98.8 per cent of the vote, and in 1999 with 79.8 per cent.

Despite his patchy democratic record and an authoritarian streak, he has maintained warm relations with the West, Russia and China in the region.

The country is forecast to become one of the world’s top 10 oil producers in the next decade as it develops new offshore oil fields in the Caspian Sea.

The Opposition has accused the West of putting Kazakhstan’s oil before democracy. Visiting Western leaders usually come to praise Nazarbayev for economic reforms and political stability rather than criticise his record.

Tuyakbai’s campaign team said on Sunday it had evidence of electoral fraud. The losing candidate was due to hold a news conference later on Monday.

The Opposition says it will not break the law by organising demonstrations against the alleged vote-rigging like those that swept through Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Such protests were banned outright during the elections and require official permission at other times.

Under Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan has reversed economic decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union and reformed its economy.It has also been plagued by corruption scandals, Opposition parties have been closed down, and several politicians and an anti-corruption reporter have been jailed. —Reuters