Polls Are Open
As the polls open for the snap Presidential election, Reuters has an interesting article surveying opinions in Aksu Ayuly, a village of 2000. Nice to hear what is being said outside of Almaty and Astana where journalists, local and international alike, often don’t bother to tread.
Meanwhile, the Central Election Committee promises to have preliminary results by tomorrow morning and final results by the 12th.
No reason to expect Nazarbayev not to win, so what commentators are looking at is the voter turnout. The opposition has been running a campaign to get people to boycott the vote and the administration in turn has been running a “get out the vote” style campaign.