On April 4, 2011, Kazakhstan's Central Election Commission (CEC) announced the preliminary results of the presidential elections held the previous day. As expected, incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev won re-election by a wide margin, garnering 95.5 percent of the votes cast. The CEC will announce the final results in a few days, but these are not expected to change the outcome.
Despite noting significant irregularities, most of the international observation teams confirmed the outcome's validity. China, Russia, the United States and many other governments have already congratulated Nazarbayev on his victory.
But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) cited some problems with the voting procedures that they had also found on previous occasions. These included restrictions on peoples' freedom of assembly and expression; ambiguities and gaps in the election law that resulted in its inconsistent application; the fact that most election commissioners were members of the ruling Nur Otan party; and a lack of due process and transparency in responding to complaints about the election process.