Oil-rich Kazakhstan failed to meet pledges that its weekend elections would be free and fair, international monitors said on Monday, casting doubt over an apparent victory for pro-presidential parties.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which observed Sunday's vote for the lower house of parliament, said it "fell short of OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections".
Information Minister Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, the only member of the government formed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev linked to an opposition party, resigned in protest at what he said was a rigged poll.
"The elections were not fair, honest or free," he said in a statement. "I do not consider it possible to remain part of a government ... that actively interfered in the electoral process and participated in fraud."
Officials dismissed the criticisms of an election whose exact result remained unclear on Monday. An electoral official said only that four parties, three of them pro-government, would get into parliament in the ex-Soviet Central Asian state.
Kazakhstan's parliament is toothless, but the vote was seen as a test of the country's ability to match its rapid economic growth with political plurality in a region dominated by authoritarian leaders who came to power in the Soviet era.
Nazarbayev had promised the latest elections would be free and fair after international criticism of all previous votes. Authorities introduced a new election law to improve shortcomings they had discussed with the OSCE.
The OSCE said it had noted some improvements: no media outlets were shut down or journalists imprisoned. But it said local government officials and the bosses of teachers, doctors, and other state employees exercised "considerable pressure" on voters.
It stopped short of accusing the government of organised fraud, but listed shortcomings including media bias against the opposition, arbitrary decisions by election officials and incomplete voter lists that meant many voters were turned away.