Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.25
Trend:
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev supported the initiative of Assembly of People of Kazakhstan about scheduling the early presidential election and signed a decree to hold this election on April 26, RIA Novosti reported.
The previous presidential election in Kazakhstan was held in April 2011 and this was also an early election. Before the announcement of the previous election, there were broad discussions on the initiative of holding a nationwide referendum on extending the incumbent president's office until 2020.
Around 2.5 million signatures in support of the referendum were collected throughout Kazakhstan in a few days, but Nazarbayev rejected this proposal and scheduled early election as a result of which he won with 95.55 percent of votes. Thus, a five-year term of office of the incumbent president expires in 2016.
Under the country's constitution, the same person can't be elected Kazakhstan's new president more than two times consecutively. However, this restriction doesn't apply to Kazakhstan's first President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Translated by LZ
Edited by CN