Elections to the Nur-Sultan City Mäslihat were held on 10 January 2021 to elect 31 councillors of the Nur-Sultan City Mäslihat. This is the first time that the MP's would be chosen by

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered Political party, political parties, with each party being Apportionment (politics), allocated a certain number of seats Apportionm ...

. The

Nur Otan Amanat (; ; officially stylized in all caps), previously known as Nur Otan (; ), is a Ruling party, ruling List of political parties in Kazakhstan, political party of Kazakhstan and the largest political association in the country, with around 8 ...

won a majority of 26 out of 31 seats in the City Mäslihat.

Background

Following the 2016 City Mäslihat elections, all the contested seats in the Mäslihat was won by

members. Despite the race being

non-partisan Nonpartisanship, also known as nonpartisanism, is a lack of affiliation with a political party and a lack of political bias. While an ''Oxford English Dictionary'' definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., ...

, many

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

candidates complained about being barred from running due to alleged "inconsistency of the data in the tax returns". After President

Nursultan Nazarbayev Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev (born 6 July 1940) is a Kazakhstani politician who served as the first president of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019. He also held the special title of Elbasy from 2010 to 2022 and chairman of the Security Council of ...

announced constitutional reforms in 2017 which would give lawmakers more power and decentralize the government, an amendment was passed by the

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

which would allow for local elections to the

Mäslihat A Mäslihat (, ) is a local representative body (parliament) in Kazakhstan that is elected by a population of a region, district and city. Etymology The word mäslihat is derived from the Arabic مَصْلَحَة ('' maṣlaḥa''), meaning " ...

s be more partisan, thus giving greater role for political parties to nominate its candidates. However this made practically impossible for self-nominated

candidates to be compete in the elections since the law requires all Mäslihat councillors to be part of political parties.

Electoral system

The City Mäslihat councillors are directly elected through

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

for a 5-year term and must win the 7%

electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can operate in various ...

to win any seats. If only one party manages to pass the threshold, then the other party with the second most received votes is awarded enough seats to have representations in the City Mäslihat.

Results

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Auyl The Auyl Party (; lit. 'Aul, Village', , ') is a political party in Kazakhstan. It was originally founded by Gani Qaliev on 30 January 2000 before eventually merging with the Party of Patriots of Kazakhstan on 5 September 2015. The party is curre ...

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Adal Adal may refer to: *A short form for Germanic names in ''aþala-'' (Old High German ''adal-''), "nobility, pedigree"; see Othalan ** Adál Maldonado (1948–2020), Puerto Rican artist ** Adal Ramones (born 1969), Mexican television show host ** A ...

, #1D83D4, 0

References

History of Astana 2021 elections in Kazakhstan January 2021 in Kazakhstan Municipal elections in Kazakhstan