Four Candidates to compete for Kazakh Presidency

    Registration for presidential candidates ended in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, March 2.
    A pre-term presidential election is slated for April 3. Four persons were given the certificates of official presidential candidates.
    Incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev was the first to have been registered. He was nominated by the Nur Otan (Bright Motherland) party.
    On February 26, the Central Election Commission registered Communist Party leader Zhambyl Akhmetbekov as a candidate.
    Akhmetbekov, 50, nominated by the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan (CPPK), which has 90,000 members, became the second officially registered presidential candidate.
    On February 28, the CEC registered Party of Patriots leader, Senator Gani Kasymov and self-nominated candidate Mels Yeleusizov, who heads of the environmental union Tagibat (Nature).
    At least 91,000 voters have to sign in for each candidate. Lists with signatures are examined and verified by territorial election commissions within five days after receipt and then handed over to the Central Election Commission.
    In addition to taking an examination in the official language, a presidential candidate should also deposit about 800,000 tenge (approximately 5,000 US dollars) to the Central Election Commission's account and submit an income declaration to the tax authorities.
    A total of 22 applications were filed with the CEC, but only 11 candidates passed the language test. Four of them collected the required number of signatures and submitted them to the CEC. The other candidates either withdrew from the race or failed to collect the necessary number of signatures.
    The nomination of candidates ended on February 20, and registration will continue till March 2. The election campaign will begin on March 3 and end on April 1. Voting will take place on April 3, according to Itar-Tass.