CEC announced four presidential candidates

The Central Election Commission officially completed the registration of presidential candidates at 00:00 on March 3, 2011, Tengrinews.kz reports. One of the OSCE/ODIHR election observers was among the attendants of the Central Election Commission’s midnight meeting. The presidential candidates are: Nursultan Nazarbayev, Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party Nur-Otan, incumbent president of Kazakhstan, Zhambyl Akhmetbekov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the People’s Communist Party of Kazakhstan, Mels Yeleusizov, leader of the ecological movement Tabigat, Gani Kasymov, Senator, nominated by the Party of Patriot of Kazakhstan. All four candidates have successfully passed the national language exam. Competence in Kazakh language is one of the prerequisite for presidential candidates in Kazakhstan. There were others candidates who passed the language exam as well. But the exam was not the only checkpoint on the way to the presidential candidate badge. Having passed the exam, some of the candidates in the end turned out to be unable to collect the required amount of signatures and solicit support of 1% of Kazakh citizens. There were others who felt that they had done enough to prove that any citizen in Kazakhstan can run for president and simply withdrew from the race. For example, Kanat Turageldiyev, tour agency director, successfully passed the language exam and was approved by the language commission. But several days before the completion of the registration period he announced that he lacked the necessary number of signatures and assigned those he had collected – about 20 thousand – to the incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Corruption fighter Zhaksybay Bazilbayev and ecologist Musagali Duambekov also gave up the race, although in the beginning of the pre-election campaign they were both confident of their victory. Several of the candidates preferred not to appear at the Central Election Commission at the set time altogether, others even turned off their cellphones. Salim Oten answered the phone call from a Tengrinews.kz journalist and confessed that he was not going to attend the CEC meeting and even decided to boycott the elections.