AFP/Astana

Millions of Kazakhs cast their votes on Sunday in the energy-rich Central Asian country in a ballot that is almost certain to re-elect the 74-year-old strongman incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The marginalised opposition has not put forward any candidates for the election and Nazarbayev is standing against two candidates widely seen as pro-government figures.
By midday local time (0600 GMT), 41 percent of the 9.5 million electorate had voted at over 9,000 polling stations across the country, according to the Central Election Commission (CEC).
Polling began at 0100 GMT and will continue until 1400 GMT.
Nazarbayev cast his ballot to loud applause in the capital Astana at around 0500 GMT.
"I am sure Kazakhs will vote primarily for stability," he said.
He has ruled the Central Asian country since before the breakup of the USSR in 1991. If he wins a new five-year term, he will be on course to reach three decades as leader.
One of the candidates standing against Nazarbayev, Turgun Syzdykov, a 68-year-old former provincial official, has campaigned on an anti-globalisation platform, railing against Hollywood, hamburgers and computer games. He represents the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan.
The other, Abelgazy Kusainov, 63, who has held several important governmental positions and currently heads the national federation of trade unions, is standing as an independent after running a campaign touching on Kazakhstan's environmental problems.
Both Syzdykov and Kusainov cast their votes early in the morning, while the country's Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Senate cast theirs before Nazarbayev.
Senate leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, making little effort to conceal who he had voted for, stressed the importance of implementing programmes of state reform directly associated with Nazarbayev and his campaign.
"Today we vote for the prosperity and progress of Kazakhstan," he told journalists.   
"This is not an election, it is a re-election," Dosym Saptaev, director of the Kazakhstan Risks Assessment Group, a think tank based in the largest city Almaty, told AFP.
"The significance of the event is no more than the fact that it may well be Nazarbayev's last."
An Ipsos MORI poll released Tuesday showed 91 percent of Kazakhstanis are satisfied with 74-year-old Nazarbayev's rule.
 
'Institutional advantage'


Economic issues have come to the forefront in the most prosperous of the five Central Asian states, all former Soviet republics.
Kazakhstan's domestic producers have been laying off workers as they struggle to compete with Russian imports made cheaper by the dramatic weakening of the sanctions-hit ruble.
Kazakhstan banned a number of Russian foodstuffs in March and April, citing standards violations, and has also restricted imports of Russian fuel. Moscow, traditionally viewed as a strong ally of the republic, implemented tit-for-tat measures this month.
Depressed prices for Kazakhstan's main export, crude oil, have also created another headache for the government.
Botagoz Seidakhmetova, a popular radio presenter, told AFP she had voted for Nazarbayev.  
"There is not another worthy candidate. We are a Central Asian state. We like stability. A new ruler means a new direction," she said.
The vast, steppe-dominated country bordering both Russia and China has never held an election deemed free and fair by international monitors.
Nazarbayev won a 2011 election with 95.5 percent of the vote. Sunday's ballot -- called a year ahead of schedule -- is the fifth he has contested.
In its interim report on the vote, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) raised concerns about Nazarbayev's "institutional advantage".
While Nazarbayev's posters and billboards were "visible throughout the country," the other two candidates have distributed "almost no campaign materials," the OSCE said.
The OSCE has sent almost 300 observers to the vote.

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