Coming next, and far behind-with 12.4 per cent, is the Ak Zhol (Radiant Road), a Right political party in constructive opposition to the regime. It is entitled to one seat.
The Asar, led by Dariga, President Nazarbayev's elder daughter, ranks third with 11.38 per cent. The AIST bloc of the Civil and Agrarian parties brings the rear with 7.07 per cent. These are entitled to one seat each, as well.
Twenty-two constituencies will have runoffs as no hopefuls have scored more than half the votes each.
The new convocation parliament will open, December 1.
Kazakhstan's parliament is bicameral, consisting of the Senate and the Majlis, both acting permanently.
Convened for five years, the Majlis has 77 seats. Of these, 67 MPs are elected by constituencies, each with an electorate approximately similar in number to the others, and ten run on party tickets with seats appointed on the proportional representation pattern.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe came out with a statement on the parliamentary poll. Its English original was translated into Russian with certain errors, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed out to the OSCE today.
Ministerial experts found the translation to essentially deviate, in places, from the original to drastically misrepresent the content of the joint OSCE-PACE document, the Foreign Ministry says in a press release.
The ministry held, September 21, conference with Ambassador Robert Barry, election monitoring mission head of the OSCE bureau for democratic institutions and human rights. The host side pointed out translation inaccuracies, and Mr. Barry acknowledged major textual discrepancies, the release goes on.
Especially alarming are inaccuracies in the Preliminary Conclusions. In particular, the text circulated, September 20, contained a sentence: "Many aspects of the improved election legislation were not implemented in an effective and unbiased way." In fact, it ought to run: "Certain aspects of the improved election legislation were not implemented in an effective and unbiased way," says the release.
As OSCE observers said to a news conference in Astana, they found the parliamentary poll of September 19 far below OSCE standards. The OSCE officers pointed out numerous violations of the law. Novosti circulated the information of an earlier occasion.
