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KAZAKHSTAN

Voters reelect president, as expected

In a nation where the president won his last election with 96 percent of the vote, not even the pro-government media bothered to cover the campaign this time around.

"We know the result. It's not interesting for people," Lev Tarakov, the editor of the Vremya newspaper, said ahead of Sunday's vote, which was set to reelect President Nursultan Nazarbayev. "He'll win 95 to 96 percent. And it will be real," said Tarakov, who was once Nazarbayev's spokesman.

Citizens in this vast Central Asian nation turned out in droves Sunday to cast their votes for the steelworker-turned-strongman who has led Kazakhstan since its 1991 independence from the Soviet Union. In the end, the president got 97.5 percent of the vote, Bloomberg News reported, citing a survey broadcast by the state-owned 24.kz TV channel. - Washington Post