I'm just back from another working trip to Kazakhstan, where the parliamentary elections took place on 15th January.
The elections came shortly after the country's 20th anniversary of independence which was overshadowed by the riots in Zhanaozen.
Kazakhstan has a bi-cameral parliament, with the Senate having 39 seats and the Lower House of Parliament having 107 seats.
Preliminary results of the elections are as follows:
7 parties took part in the elections, of which 3 met the 7% threshold needed to enter the Lower House of Parliament.
Voter turnout was around 75%, which means that nearly 7 million people voted.
The ruling party, Nur Otan, took 80.7% of the votes, Ak Zhol took 7.4% and the Communists took 7.2%.
