Voting begins in Kazakhstan Parliamentary elections

More than 9,700 polling stations opened Sunday for Kazakhstan early parliamentary elections, with expectations to end the ruling party s total control of the parliament.  The Central Electoral Committee in the capital, Astana, said voting began at 7 am local time and will end at 8 pm. Results may be announced tomorrow.  All seats in parliament are currently occupied by President Nursultan Nazarbayev s Nur Otan party. A 2009 election law gives at least two seats to the party with the second-highest share of votes even if it does not receive the 7% vote threshold.  The poll comes less than a month after clashes broke out in the west of the former Soviet Union s second-biggest energy producer, killing 16 people after months of strikes by workers at the state-run energy company.  Ahead of the poll, Nazarbayev called for peace in the country. Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan since 1989 in the Soviet era, won a new five-year term last April with 95.5 percent backing.  Support for Nur Otan is 80.1 percent, according to a January 4-6 survey of 1,500 respondents conducted by the Institute of Democracy research association. The Akzhol party is next with 7.3 percent backing, the poll showed.