Nursultan Nazarbayev signs law on snap presidential elections in Kazakhstan

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a law on amendments to the constitution, allowing him to hold snap presidential elections instead of a referendum on prolonging his rule until 2020, presidential press service reported.

Kazakhstan's parliament on Wednesday, February 2, approved amendments to the constitution. The bill amending the constitution was unanimously approved by the parliament's two houses and was submitted to the president to be signed.

"The law puts in place the constitutional framework for conducting early presidential polls," Talgat Danakov, deputy chief of presidential administration, said at the joint session of parliament. Nazarbayev, whose current term is due to expire in 2012, unexpectedly rejected a plan to hold a referendum on prolonging his rule until 2020, saying that he would instead call early presidential polls. The presidential announcement to reject the referendum plan, which had envisaged scrapping elections in 2012 and 2017, came after rare criticism of the ex-Soviet state by its Western ally the United States.

The parliament last month said the controversial referendum should go ahead but the constitutional court rejected the plan later, according to AFP.