Kazakh elections Sunday set to extend Nazarbayev's rule

Citizens in energy-rich Kazakhstan will head to the polls Sunday for early elections almost certain to extend the quarter-century rule of incumbent 74-year-old President Nursultan Nazarbayev by another five years.

Few doubt that the snap vote - which takes place amid economic uncertainty connected to low oil prices and the weakened ruble in neighbouring Russia - will reconfirm Nazarbayev's mandate to rule the country he has controlled with limited opposition since before independence.

His marginalised opponents have not offered any candidates for the vote but Nazarbayev will face two other candidates, both of whom are widely seen as pro-government figures.

Turgun Syzdykov, a 68-year-old former provincial official who has campaigned on an anti-globalisation platform, railing against Hollywood, hamburgers and computer games, will represent the country's communist party.

Abelgazy Kusainov, 63, who has held several ministerial positions and currently heads the national federation of trade unions is running as an independent. Kusainov's campaign has touched on environmental problems in the country.

In its interim report on the vote, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe raised concerns about Nazarbayev's "institutional advantage."

While Nazarbayev's posters and billboards are "visible throughout the country," "almost no campaign materials have been observed for the other two candidates," the OSCE said.

Nazarbayev, who is standing for the ruling Nur Otan party enjoys high levels of public approval for helping transform the country economically and generally maintaining inter-ethnic harmony in the diverse majority-Muslim country.

An Ipsos MORI poll released Tuesday showed 91 percent of Kazakhstanis are satisfied with his rule.

"This is not an election it is a re-election," Dosym Saptaev, Director of the Kazakhstan Risks Assessment Group, an Almaty-based think tank, told AFP.

"The significance of the event is no more than the fact that it may well be his last."

While the septuagenarian strongman has never hinted at a successor, Nazarbayev stated his reluctance to run on the April 26 ballot at a meeting with citizens in March, before announcing his candidacy the following week.

Economic issues have come to the forefront in the most prosperous of the five Central Asian states, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

With low prices for crude oil, the country's chief export, and local businesses laying off staff amid the weakening of neighbouring Russia's sanctions-hit ruble, Nazarbayev warned of medium term "economic difficulties" during a key address to the government in February.

The government has recently imposed a number of bans on Russian food and fuel products, as local producers struggle to compete on price, but both Astana and Moscow deny they are engaged in a trade war.

- 'No-doubts' victory -

Several voters in the country's two main cities said that they do not view the other candidates as serious contenders.    

"I will cast my vote for the President," said Marupjan Kurbanov, a 21-year old student in the country's largest city, Almaty.

"He has a clear economic program. The other two candidates have said very little about the economy."

In the capital Astana, which Nazarbayev played a key role in building almost from scratch in the post-independence years, a businessmen who gave his name as Vyacheslav, 35, said he was not sure who to vote for.

"It would be good if something changed in the country but I do not know the other candidates. No one doubts Nazarbayev's victory," he said.  

Nazarbayev appeared relaxed ahead of the vote at a Thursday celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan, a constitutional organ under his control.

"Nursultan Abishevich, eight million women love you!" a female speaker at the event told him.

This will be Nazarbayev's fifth presidential ballot, none of which have been judged free and fair by international vote monitors.

Nazarbayev won with landslide majorities - all above 80 percent - in 1991, 1999, 2005 and 2011.

Polls will open at 0100 GMT Sunday across the vast, steppe-dominated country, with 9.5 million people eligible to cast votes.