Фото: пресс-служба президента Казахстана
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will be eligible to run for president once again in elections held under Kazakhstan’s new Constitution. The country’s Constitutional Court issued that interpretation in response to a request from the president.
The Constitution introduced a provision limiting the president to a single seven-year term.
The Constitutional Court explained that the restrictions established by the Basic Law apply only to a person’s previous election or appointment to the office under the procedures set out in the current Constitution. The court also noted that the Constitution contains no provisions requiring previous terms or elections held under the former Basic Law to be taken into account.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev became President of Kazakhstan on March 20, 2019, after the country’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, stepped down before the end of his term.
On June 9, 2019, Tokayev won the snap presidential election.
In 2022, Tokayev proposed reducing the maximum number of presidential terms from two to one, extending the presidential term from five to seven years, and holding an early presidential election. The vote took place in November, and Tokayev was re-elected.
This year, Kazakhstan adopted a new Constitution, which entered into force in July. Although the one-term, seven-year limit had formally been incorporated into the Basic Law four years earlier, the Constitution itself had not been replaced. With the adoption of the new Constitution, previous presidential terms have been reset.
The next presidential election in Kazakhstan is scheduled to be held in 2029.