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Kazakh president vetoes election ban in restive southwestern town

© RIA Novosti . Mikhail Klimentyev / Go to the mediabankNursultan Nazarbayev
Nursultan Nazarbayev - Sputnik International
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Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has vetoed the decision by the country’s Constitutional Council not to hold parliamentary elections in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen, which saw violent riots last month that left 16 people dead, the presidential press office said on Tuesday.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has vetoed the decision by the country’s Constitutional Council not to hold parliamentary elections in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen, which saw violent riots last month that left 16 people dead, the presidential press office said on Tuesday.

The Kazakh Constitutional Council issued an order last week excluding Zhanaozen from voting in the elections on January 15. A few days earlier, Nazarbayev extended the state of emergency in the town to January 31.

“The Kazakh president took Zhanaozen residents’ concern into consideration and decided the Constitutional Council’s decision restricted their voting rights stipulated by the county’s constitution and [other] laws,” the presidential press office said in a statement.

Violent clashes between oil workers who had been fired from a local company and police broke out in the city in December, leaving 16 people dead. The riots sparked a series of demonstrations against the excessive use of force by police in several other towns in southwestern Kazakhstan.

The state of emergency in the region, which had been due to expire on January 5, includes a night-time curfew, a ban on demonstrations and the use of copy machines, as well as traffic and other restrictions.

Nazarbayev disbanded the country’s parliament and announced early polls in mid-November following the introduction of constitutional amendments providing for a multiparty parliament and designed to end the governing Nur Otan party's monopolistic grip over the legislature.

Under a new election law, a minimum of two parties will enter parliament after the polls.

 

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