Cost of presidential election in Kazakhstan - 5 billion tenge

More than 5 billion tenge ($27 million) can be used to hold presidential election in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews reports citing the Minister of National Economy of Kazakhstan Yerbolat Dossayev, who spoke at a briefing at the Central Communications Service's headquarters on February 19.

"I think every citizen of Kazakhstan is familiar with the initiative of the People’s Assembly. We support the initiative and the election given the current conditions. There is not much money. But you can’t say this will be a huge expense. In 2016 we envisaged to use a little more than 5 billion tenge to hold presidential election," Dosayev said.

On February 14, the People’s Assembly of Kazakhstan brought forth an initiative to hold the presidential election in Kazakhstan ahead of time. According to schedule the election is to be held in 2016, but the Assembly is proposing to hold the early election this year citing the difficult economic situation in the country and the pressure exerted by the global financial crisis.

According to the members of the Assembly, holding early election in Kazakhstan would enable it to more effectively implement its new anti-crisis infrastructure development program Nurly Zhol and withstand the increasing global economic challenges.

Nur Otan, Kazakhstan's ruling political party, supported the initiative. The Communist Party of Kazakhstan and the Party of Patriots also backed the idea.

The Bloggers’ Alliance of Kazakhstan called the early election in the country an “expensive spectacle” and said it would be a better idea to hold a referendum to extend Nazarbayev’s tenure until 2022.

Reporting by Assemgul Kassenova, writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina