Kazakhstan’s Kurultai Vote: The First Real Test of Tokayev’s New Political Order

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On 23 August, Kazakhstan will vote for the Kurultai, a new 145-seat, single-chamber parliament replacing the two-chamber system the country has had since independence.

The government presents it as political modernisation; critics see a system that may further consolidate presidential authority. Both claims can be tested against the same election. That is precisely why 23 August is not the finish line forreform, but the first real evidence of whether the new architecture means anything in practice.

What began as a relatively modest promise expanded rapidly. In January 2026, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said constitutional changes would address parliament’s structure. Within weeks, that had become a sweeping rewrite of the 1995 Constitution. Voters approved the changes in a referendum on 15 March, with turnout above 73 per cent and support above 87 per cent. Tokayev signed the new Constitution into law two days later. It took effect on 1 July, the same day the old Senate and Mäjilis ceased to exist.

The Kurultai is unicameral, with 145 deputies elected for five years entirely through national party lists and a 5 per centthreshold for representation. There are no constituency races and no individual candidates running independently of party lists. The whole country votes as a single constituency, meaning the distribution of seats will depend on which parties clear the threshold and by how much.

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The transition has also required significant public spending. The election was not included in the original 2026 state budget because the budget had been drafted before the constitutional overhaul. Funding has therefore had to be drawn from the government’s reserve. Much of the expenditure goes towards staffing election commissions nationwide, alongside ballots, campaign materials, public information and logistics.

International observers have also been invited and accredited. Their presence can help assess whether procedures are followed and ballots are counted properly. But observation alone cannot answer the larger political question: whether the conditions of competition were balanced before voting began.

Simpler on paper, more centralised underneath

Replacing two chambers with one is being presented as a move towards a smaller, faster and more focused legislature. There is logic in that argument. But institutional simplification does not automatically mean political decentralisation.

The Senate disappears, while the redesigned constitutional system also restores the office of Vice President and establishes a new People’s Council with the power to propose legislation and referendums. The Kurultai, meanwhile, receives important consent powers over senior appointments, including the Vice President, prime minister, Constitutional Court judges and the heads of key state institutions.

Those powers matter. They give the chamber a potentially meaningful role in the machinery of government. Yet the real test will be how independently they are exercised. Formal authority on paper can become either an institutional check or a procedural formality.

That distinction is central to understanding the reform. The question is not simply whether the Kurultai has powers. It is whether it is willing and able to use them.

Seven parties, one clear front-runner

Seven parties are contesting the election, offering agrarian, social-democratic, green, liberal-reformist and business-oriented platforms. On paper, the ideological range is broad. In practice, however, the field is shaped by one dominant political force and several smaller competitors.

Adilet enters the race with the strongest organisational position after absorbing Amanat, the long-dominant ruling party, in June. It has the largest candidate list and is campaigning on housing, healthcare and job creation.

Ak Zhol is pushing for economic liberalisation and a stronger parliamentary oversight role, including greater investigative powers. Auyl has centred its campaign on rural Kazakhstan, food security, land reform and protections for agricultural workers. The People’s Party of Kazakhstan emphasises labour rights, universal public services and affordable housing. Respublica, the Nationwide Social Democratic Party and the Baytaq Green Party complete the field with reformist, social-democratic and environmental platforms.

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The most consequential competition may therefore take place below first place. Under a national party-list system with a 5 per cent threshold, a movement of only a few percentage points can determine whether a smaller party enters parliament at all. That makes the threshold itself one of the most important numbers on election night.

What the campaign is about - and what voters want

Campaign debates have focused heavily on human capital, education, science and innovation - priorities also elevated by the new constitutional framework. Parties have argued over how to retain skilled professionals, attract back those who have left, modernise education and integrate artificial intelligence into classrooms. Electoral reform, anti-corruption measures, pension-fund transparency and support for smaller manufacturers have also featured.

The campaign format itself reflects an effort to demonstrate a more structured national contest. State television has hosted debates between party representatives, while parties have taken their campaigns across the regions through meetings with young people, businesses and rural communities.

Voters, however, appear to be asking more immediate questions. Surveys suggest that household incomes, inflation, corruption and employment remain among the public’s leading concerns. Constitutional architecture is necessarily more abstract than the price of food, the cost of housing or the security of a job.

That gap matters. It is the difference between an election that changes how citizens experience government and one that changes primarily how the state organises itself.

Kazakhstan’s economy provides an important backdrop. The country remains Central Asia’s largest economy and has recorded strong growth. Yet national growth figures do not automatically translate into a perception of improving household welfare. If voters continue to feel pressure from prices and living costs, institutional reform alone will not create political legitimacy.

A parliament that is seen to address that gap can build credibility. One viewed mainly as a rearrangement of institutions cannot, regardless of how the seats are distributed on 23 August.

The vote that matters is the one after this

The March referendum answered one question: did voters approve the new constitutional system? The 23 August election begins to answer another: how will that system function once political actors take their seats?

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Election night itself may provide only a partial answer. The more important evidence will emerge afterwards, inside the new chamber.

Will the Kurultai use its consent powers over senior appointments as a genuine check or largely as a formality? Will it conduct meaningful oversight of the government? How will it coexist with the unelected People’s Council, which can propose legislation without having faced voters directly?

There is a structural question beneath all of this. A smaller chamber elected entirely through national party lists, in a system where one presidentially aligned political force begins with a substantial organisational advantage, can evolve in two very different directions. It can become a more professional and effective legislature. Or it can become a more efficiently managed one.

The ballot alone cannot settle which.

That will depend on whether the Kurultai uses its new powers, whether opposition parties that enter the chamber can exercise meaningful scrutiny, and whether the concerns voters repeatedly identify - incomes, inflation, jobs and public services - move to the centre of the parliamentary agenda once campaigning ends.

The regional comparison also deserves caution. Kazakhstan presents its reforms as evidence of political modernisation in Central Asia: national party competition, televised debates, international observers and parliamentary consent powers over senior appointments. Against some regional benchmarks, those changes are significant. Against the standards applied to established democracies - including realistic prospects for turnover of power, strong opposition competition and a media environment able to scrutinise the dominant political force freely - the picture is more modest.

Neither comparison should be ignored.

The 23 August vote therefore matters, but not because it will provide a final verdict on Kazakhstan’s political transformation. It matters because a new institution is being born with real, if bounded, powers.

Who enters the Kurultai will be decided on election day. Whether the Kurultai becomes an institution capable of exercising those powers will be decided afterwards.

The ballot creates the institution. What the institution does with power will tell us whether Kazakhstan changed its political system - or merely redesigned it. Nurbolat Nyshanbayev, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Higher School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Turan University in Almaty, Kazakhstan

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Kazakhstan Tokayev Politics