NGO "Echo" in partnership with 26 regional public organizations declared intention to implement, with the support of the "European Endowment for Democracy", a comprehensive monitoring of the forthcoming elections in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Monitoring will be a long-term (observation of pre- and post-election periods) and short-term (observation of the voting and vote-counting process).
The main purpose of monitoring is to give an independent assessment of the electoral process and on its follow-up to provide sound recommendations for changes in the electoral legislation of Kazakhstan.
The project has a number of local objectives. Among them are the identification of possible violations of the election legislation, if possible to prevent them; analytical work: defining trends, forecasting, analysis of statistical data and ratings.
Long-term monitoring is conducted in 14 regional centers and cities of Astana and Almaty.
Long-term monitoring will cover the work of election commissions at all levels, transparency of their activities, the availability and quality of voters' lists, issues of informing citizens about the time and place of voting. Another focus will be on issues of honest conduct of election campaigns by candidates and political parties. Any litigation and disputes relating to the elections will get under the monitoring and assessment.
84 mobile observers will operate in the regional centers, cities Astana and Almaty, as well as in 10 small towns within the framework of short-term monitoring. They will work closely with all local observer groups. The monitoring will cover the very course of voting, summing up at the polls and the transmission of protocol to the higher election commissions. Technologically monitoring will be carried out both through the direct presence of observers at the polls and through operational work of the mobile teams.
The innovative aspect of the project will be that the observers in on-line mode will upload videos and photos of violations on the voting day on a specially created page in the social networks.
Today stage of nomination and registration of political parties is over. NGO Echo has conducted analysis of lists of candidates nominated by political parties according to age and sex. The results are shown in the graphs.
