Sanzhar considers himself a “typical” middle class 24-year-old Gen-Z Kazakh living in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty. He feels emotionally invested in American politics and the state of the ongoing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Kazakh politics, on the other hand, he feels, is boring and meaningless. 

Does he plan on taking part in Kazakhstan’s upcoming August 23 election for the country’s new unicameral parliament?

“What would be the point?” he tells IntelliNews.  

Sanzhar’s attitude towards the political climate in the ex-Soviet Central Asian state is not an exception but the rule among many Kazakh youth.

Political fatigue

A sense of fatigue is hanging over the election, with analysts pointing to voter disengagement, the absence of a genuine opposition and growing self-censorship as evidence of a widening gap between society and the political system.

The election will be the first for the 145-member Kurultai, created under constitutional changes approved in a March 2026 constitutional referendum. Seven parties have registered to compete: Ak Zhol, Respublica, the People’s Party of Kazakhstan, the National Social Democratic Party, Auyl, Baytaq and Adilet. Together they have nominated 545 candidates.

None of the parties is regarded as an opposition force. All have said they support the political course of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Adilet, formed in June, later incorporated the ruling Amanat party. Unlike the previous parliamentary election, this contest will have no self-nominated candidates, with all 145 seats being distributed through party lists.

Serik Beisembayev, director of the PaperLab research centre, told Azattyq Asia in an interview that the lack of enthusiasm reflected a long-running loss of faith in elections and political parties. PaperLab found in a 2023 survey that more than 65% of respondents believed political parties did not represent their interests. Beisembayev said the organisation had been unable to conduct a pre-election survey this year because the Central Election Commission had not approved such polling.

He said the problem was not simply that voters had lost interest in politics. Rather, they had become convinced that domestic political participation could not produce meaningful change.

“For ordinary voters, the parties are no different from one another,” Beisembayev told Azattyq Asia, describing his experience of asking university students which parties they knew. Often, he said, only one or two students could name Nur Otan, the predecessor to Amanat.

He said the result was a basic question for voters: why participate in an election when there was no candidate or party they believed represented them?

Political space narrows

Beisembayev said the space for political participation had also narrowed since the January 2022 unrest, known in Kazakhstan as Qandy Qantar or “Bloody January”. Civic activists who once sought to influence politics through protests and mobilisation now faced tighter restrictions. Peaceful assemblies, elections and freedom of speech had all become sensitive subjects, he said.

“We see an enormous distance between the decision-making system and society,” Beisembayev said. “This is not only a problem of representation. It is a problem that systemic issues will remain in the shadows, while questions that are safe and serve the interests of very narrow groups of people will be brought to the surface.”

The disengagement is particularly striking because Kazakhs have not necessarily become indifferent to political affairs, he argued. Beisembayev said people remained closely interested in international events, including developments in the US and the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, while largely tuning out domestic politics.

The distinction, he said, reflected years in which citizens had felt unable to affect political decisions, elections or the direction of government. Repeated periods of anticipated reform followed by disappointment had produced a sense of exhaustion and futility.

The electoral system introduced after the 2022 unrest illustrates that cycle. In the aftermath of the protests, the authorities restored a mixed electoral model combining proportional party representation with majoritarian constituencies, allowing some candidates to stand independently. The government also announced plans to introduce direct elections for akims, or local governors, in districts and cities of regional significance.

These measures had been intended to respond to public expectations of change and restore legitimacy following the unrest, according to Beisembayev. They were part of a broader package of reforms presented as a response to the demands of a society shaken by the January violence.

The authorities have since reversed course. The mixed system has been abandoned and Kazakhstan has returned to proportional representation, with the new Kurultai to be elected entirely through party lists.

The official justification for the proportional model is that it shifts voters’ attention from individual personalities to party programmes and allows parties to represent the interests of broader social groups. Authorities argue that party-based representation should produce a more professional and competent legislature.

Beisembayev disputed this premise. He told Azattyq Asia that parliament’s primary purpose was representation rather than professional expertise, questioning who should determine which politicians were sufficiently competent to serve.

He also argued that the experience of the majoritarian system had exposed an issue that made directly elected deputies less attractive to an authoritarian political structure: autonomy.

Deputies elected directly from regions, he said, had greater freedom even within their own parties because their political mandate came from voters. A deputy who could point to a personal electoral base was more difficult for the party leadership to control.

Self-nominated candidates had represented only a minority of the previous system, but Beisembayev said the authorities had nevertheless chosen to eliminate that route.

“In an authoritarian regime, they are afraid of the popularity of politicians within the system who can appear to people as an alternative to Tokayev,” Beisembayev told Azattyq Asia. “Everyone has to be smaller, lower and quieter than the president. Nobody should overshadow him.”

Adilet’s victory a foregone conclusion 

Ultimately, the expected victory of Tokayev's ruling party, Adilet, is a foregone conclusion - it is also seen as obvious that the Auyl party, which also supports Tokayev, will come in second place. As such, local observers are analysing who else might break the 5% threshold to enter third place. 

Andrei Matveev of The Times of Central Asia wrote on August 4 that three national surveys pointed towards a decisive victory for Adilet, with Auyl following second. The more uncertain issue was whether Ak Zhol, Respublica or another smaller party could secure at least 5% of the vote.

The threshold matters because all 145 seats will be allocated through nationwide party lists. A relatively small change in support for parties close to 5% could therefore have a disproportionate effect on the final composition of the Kurultai.

Polling data provide little indication of a competitive race at the top of the ballot. Surveys vary in their timing, methodology, sample size and treatment of undecided voters, meaning their precise figures cannot be directly compared. They nevertheless show a broadly consistent hierarchy, with Adilet well ahead, Auyl in second place and several other parties hovering around or below the electoral threshold.

The latest survey cited by Matveev was conducted by the Institute of Eurasian Integration through face-to-face interviews with 4,000 respondents between July 16 and July 26. It covered all 17 regions as well as Astana, Almaty and Shymkent and reported a margin of error of no more than 1.54%.

Adilet received 65.1% in that survey, while Auyl was on 5.9%. Ak Zhol stood at 4.7%, narrowly ahead of Respublica at 4.6%. The National Social Democratic Party received 4.2%, the People’s Party of Kazakhstan 4.1% and Baytaq, the green party, 0.5%.

Does the opposition even exist anymore? 

The absence of a formal opposition does not necessarily mean that political dissent has disappeared. Edward Lemon, president of the Washington-based Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, told RFE/RL in a report published on July 15 that activism had adapted to the restrictions on organised opposition.

“Activism has not disappeared entirely... it has merely taken different forms,” Lemon said.

He contrasted the current situation with the nationwide protests that followed Kazakhstan’s 2019 transfer of presidential power and the upheaval that followed Kyrgyzstan’s disputed parliamentary election in 2020. Neither country is currently experiencing comparable nationwide mobilisation, he said.

Instead, political activism has increasingly moved towards smaller, localised campaigns dealing with issues such as utility prices and services, housing and property rights, Lemon argued. Such protests are less threatening to central governments because they generally focus on specific grievances rather than challenging national leadership. The difficulty for opposition movements is whether these separate campaigns can eventually be connected and transformed into an organised political alternative.

The increasingly restricted environment for independent media adds another obstacle for meaningful opposition.

Media crackdowns and self-censorship 

Ahead of the August 23 election, a group of human rights organisations warned in a joint statement that independent journalists in Kazakhstan were facing mounting pressure. The organisations highlighted criminal proceedings involving journalists Dinara Yegubaeva and Lukpan Akhmedyarov, the conviction of journalist Alexandra Alyokhova and the detention of political commentator Azamat Omarov.

The organisations said the cases formed part of a wider and longer-term pattern of pressure against independent media and journalists. They cited politically motivated charges, online restrictions on access to information and other forms of harassment and intimidation directed at those who criticise the authorities.

The organisations said they shared concerns expressed by Kazakh civil society groups and media freedom monitors that political pressure had reached an unprecedented level and warranted greater international attention.

For Beisembayev, the effect of this environment is not limited to individual journalists. It has created uncertainty over where the boundaries of permissible speech lie and encouraged people across society to censor themselves.

“I can’t name a single media outlet, journalist or blogger that hasn’t been blocked, attacked, closed or faced administrative, or even worse, criminal charges in recent times,” he told Azattyq Asia.

Beisembayev contrasted the present situation with media restrictions under former president Nursultan Nazarbayev's rule. Under Nazarbayev, the political boundaries were restrictive but comparatively clear: the former president and his inner circle were not to be challenged, while there remained some room to criticise the authorities.

Those boundaries have become less predictable under Tokayev, Beisembayev posited. People no longer know what might trigger official action against them, creating a form of uncertainty that encourages silence.

He said the resulting self-censorship could also damage the government’s own ability to identify and respond to problems.

A journalist or activist who notices a serious issue in a region may choose not to report it because of the potential consequences. That deprives the authorities of an independent source of information and can leave the presidential administration reliant on official reports that may present a distorted picture.

Beisembayev said citizens were similarly forced to weigh their words because statements could potentially be treated as “obviously false information”. The lack of clear boundaries, combined with subjective enforcement, means people may fear that comments considered unacceptable by an individual official or complainant could lead to liability.

The uncertainty is also affecting the media profession. Beisembayev said some journalists were leaving the industry and warned that, over time, continued pressure could weaken Kazakhstan’s entire independent media sector.

What remains, he said, risks being dominated by state-aligned propaganda and entertainment content, while issues affecting ordinary citizens go unreported.

“The consequences will be bad: society’s problems will remain unresolved, and the authorities will remain unaware of them,” he said.

Does the Kurultai matter?

Ultimately, some analysts have already argued that the parliamentary reform into the unicameral Kurultai and the subsequent election is a “secondary issue” to the question of Tokayev’s consolidation of presidential power.

Ozodlik on July 14 quoted political analyst Dimash Alzhanov as noting that public debate over the constitutional draft was steered towards secondary questions, including the composition of parliament, while more consequential issues concerning presidential authority attracted less scrutiny.

"The issue of consolidating and centralising power was already on the agenda immediately after the 2022 [“Bloody January”] protests. The president and his administration have been moving towards that goal step by step," Alzhanov said.

The new unicameral parliament will certainly allow the Adilet party to take the reigns of the reformed unicameral entity. But ultimately, the move is simply there as a formality eminating from Kazakhstan's constitutional reboot, which in itself is a final step in the consolidation of power around Tokayev, who is now eligible to seek another presidential term under the new constitution.