Secretary General of IPA CIS Council met with Consul General of Republic of Kazakhstan in St. Petersburg

Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council Dmitriy Kobitskiy met with Consul General of the Republic of Kazakhstan in St. Petersburg Bauyrzhan Dosmanbetov in Tavricheskiy Palace. During a meeting, they discussed the work of the IPA CIS international observers in the upcoming elections to the lower house of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as prospects for cooperation between the international organization and the Сonsulate in other areas.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy said that the IPA CIS observers would have to conduct long-term monitoring of the elections to the Mazhilis. IPA CIS IIMDD representatives will analyze the compliance of the country’s legislation regulating the holding of early elections with international standards of democratic elections. The observers will also hold meetings with representatives of political parties and candidates in single-member constituencies participating in the election campaign.

Parliamentarians of the Commonwealth countries, IIMDD staff members and experts will arrive as part of the IPA CIS Observer Team for short-term monitoring in the Republic of Kazakhstan on the eve of the elections. The observers will meet with the participants of the electoral campaign and visit polling stations on the voting day. A pool of the IPA CIS international observers is also formed to work at foreign polling stations.

Bauyrzhan Dosmanbetov noted that the upcoming early elections would be held in new conditions: 70% of the deputies of the Mazhilis will be elected on party lists, and 30% – in single-member constituencies. The procedure for registering political parties was also significantly simplified in the framework of the constitutional reform, which led to the increase in number of associations.

At the meeting, Dmitriy Kobitskiy told the representatives of the diplomatic mission about the events of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly scheduled for the near future: the St. Petersburg International Labor Forum, the conference “Regulation of International Migration Processes on the Territory of the CIS Member Nations”, scheduled within the framework of the forum, the X Nevsky International Ecological Congress, the International Forum “St. Petersburg - the Parliamentary Capital of Commonwealth”.

Dmitriy Kobitskiy invited representatives of the Consulate General of the Republic of Kazakhstan to take part in the events and expressed hope for effective and productive cooperation.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council – Plenipotentiary Representative of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the IPA CIS Igor Musalimov, Deputy Head of the Secretariat – Director of the IPA CIS IIMDD Ivan Mushket, representatives of the Consulate General of the Republic of Kazakhstan Arman Beikutov and Dina Sdyhova.