Kazakhstan presidential candidates spent 500 million tenge on election campaigns

Kazakhstan Central Election Commission named the sums spent by presidential candidates on their election campaigns, Bnews.kz reported. Overall campaign expenses of the four candidates made 516.6 million tenge ($3.6 million). Election campaign of the incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev cost 431.9 million tenge ($3 million). He spent 79.9 million tenge ($550 thousand) out of his own funds, 111.9 million tenge ($770 thousand) were provided by his party Nur Otan, the remaining 239.9 million tenge ($1.6 million) were donated by Kazakhstan residents and companies. The second place by campaign expenses is held by the communist Zhambyl Akhmetbekov. He spent 40.5 million tenge ($278 thousand). Major part of the money was collected from voluntary donations of Kazakhstan residents and companies. His own funds made only 279,800 tenge ($1,920) in the overall amount. The party did not support its candidate with money. The candidate from the Party of Patriots Gani Kassymov spent 22.3 million tenge ($153 thousand) on his campaign. These money were donated by Kazakhstan residents. The party did not fund Kassymov's election campaign. Mels Yeleussizov spent the least amount of money. 21.8 million tenge ($149 thousand) were donated by Kazakhstan residents and companies.