Elections to the Almaty City Mäslihat were held on 19 March 2023 to elect 42 deputies to the 8th convocation of the Almaty City Mäslihat. It coincided with the 2023 local elections. For the first time, a mixed electoral system was used, with half of the seats filled through single-member districts and the other half through party-list proportional representation.
In the party-list contest, the ruling Amanat party secured a majority, winning 12 out of 21 seats. The party also dominated the constituency seats, further consolidating its majority control. Notably, independents were elected for the first time since 2016, following the restoration of the mixed electoral system in the 2022 referendum. Other parties that gained representation, listed in descending order of seats, include Respublica, the People's Party, Baytaq, and Aq Jol.
Background As a result of the 2021 Almaty City Mäslihat election, the ruling Nur Otan (now known as Amanat) got the majority of seats in the Mäslihat. From there, Stanislav Kankurov, the first deputy chairman of the Nur Otan party in Almaty, was subsequently elected as the mäslihat's new secretary for the first time since 2014 during its opening session of the 7th convocation.
Before this election, the deputies used to be directly-elected through proportional representation for a five-year term, with a 7% electoral threshold. In the aftermath of the 2022 Kazakh unrest, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in his March 2022 State of the Nation Address unveiled a series of reforms, including the changing of the electoral system of all mäslihats into a mixed one.
Following a constitutional referendum in a September 2022 State of the Nation Address, Tokayev announced a snap local elections for mäslihat deputies to take place in the first half of 2023 in parr with the Mäjilis election.
Electoral system Since Tokayev's March 2022 Presidential Address to the Nation, the members are elected through a mixed electoral system, in which half of the seats are elected from single-member districts and party-list proportional representation, respectively.
Parties Six parties submitted their party lists to the Territorial Electoral Commission of Almaty, and they were registered on 18 February 2023. NameBranch leaderNo. 1 on party list2021 resultVotes (%)SeatsAmanatAmanatMeyirjan OtynşievZhansaya Abdumalik68.1%Auyl"Auyl" People's Democratic Patriotic PartyAibyn TörehanovÄmirhan Smaiyluly7.7%RespublicaRespublicaRaiymbek SuñğatHamit BahatbekNewQHPPeople's Party of KazakhstanNursultan ŞoqanovGülnara Abrahmatova7.3%BaytaqBeibit ÄpsenbetovBeibit ÄpsenbetovNewAq JolAq Jol Democratic PartyOljas NuraldinovOljas Nuraldinov10.1%
Results
See also 2023 Kazakh legislative election 2023 Kazakh local elections
References