Kazakh opposition rallies against election result

Hundreds of people on Tuesday protested in Kazakhstan's largest city against elections swept by the ruling party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, which the opposition says were rigged. Supporters of the anti-Nazarbayev All-National Social Democratic Party (OSDP) rallied under falling snow in Almaty, in a protest that was not sanctioned but was allowed to go ahead peacefully amid a heavy police presence. Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party took more than 80 percent of the vote in Sunday's polls, although two nominally opposition parties gained seats for the first time. The OSDP, the only clearly anti-government party, won just 1.59 percent. At the rally, the leaders of the OSDP set fire to printouts of official vote counts on the Republic Square. "They stink!" Amirzhan Kosanov, the party's general secretary, said of the vote counts. The party has refused to recognise the election results as valid. International observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the vote "did not meet fundamental principles of democratic elections" and saw a lack of transparency in counting and cases of fraud. Bulat Abilov, the OSDP's co-chairman, said at the rally that the opposition had not asked its supporters to turn out, fearing police violence. "We received messages that they were preparing an operation using force, so we did not invite our supporters today. There are buses full of riot police with shields and batons around the square. That is their answer to our protest." He announced another protest for January 28 in central Almaty, saying that the opposition would seek permission from the authorities, but would go ahead even if it were not sanctioned. "We will come even if they repress us, even if they arrest us," said Abilov. The polls were overshadowed by concerns about Kazakhstan's stability after December clashes between striking oil workers and security forces left 16 people dead in the Central Asian state's worst bloodshed since the fall of the Soviet Union.