Kazakhstan vote tightens Tokayev's grip as EU looks away

When Kazakhstan votes in parliamentary elections on August 23, the outcome is not in doubt. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's Adilet party will win. The legislature that emerges will do precisely what the presidency requires of it. The real question is what these elections reveal about the balance of power inside Kazakhstan and about the calculations being made in Brussels, Moscow and Beijing.

A constitution rewritten to concentrate power

The vote marks the first parliamentary contest since Kazakhstan adopted constitutional amendments that reshape the country's political architecture. The two-chamber parliament is being replaced by a single-chamber body called the Kurultai, with 145 seats filled entirely through party lists. Independent candidates, previously permitted, are excluded. Seven parties are on the ballot, including Adilet, which translates as Justice. None of the others pose a serious challenge to Tokayev's authority.

Luca Anceschi, professor of Eurasian studies at the University of Glasgow, puts the matter bluntly. The new parliament will do "pretty much to represent whatever the regime wants them to do," he said. No genuine opposition figures are expected to enter the chamber.

The constitutional changes also serve a narrower purpose. They allow Tokayev to run for another seven-year term in 2029 and they further marginalise the political network built by Nursultan Nazarbayev, who governed Kazakhstan from 1991 until stepping down in 2019. Nazarbayev's allies dominated Kazakh politics for decades. Tokayev has spent the years since systematically dismantling that bloc, and the new parliament is designed to complete the job.

Zauresh Battalova, a former Kazakhstani senator who now leads the Foundation for the Development of Parliamentarism, argues that the shift from two chambers to one matters less than what the legislature can actually do. The relevant measure, she said, is "the scope of its powers, its autonomy and its ability to oversee the executive branch of government." On those criteria, she sees little improvement. The election, she told Deutsche Welle, will be conducted "exclusively on the basis of party lists, in the absence of a political opposition and with limited party competition. The scope for genuine political choice remains extremely narrow."

Europe's convenient pragmatism

If the democratic deficit is obvious, the response from European capitals is not. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union has recalibrated its approach to Central Asia. Trade routes that bypass Russian territory have become a strategic priority. So have the region's mineral and energy reserves. The result, according to Stefan Meister, who heads the Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), is that the EU has become markedly less interested in governance standards.

Neither the European Commission nor individual member states are likely to raise objections to the narrowing of political freedoms in Kazakhstan, Meister said. At most, criticism might come from civil society organisations, the European Parliament or the Council of Europe. Anceschi is more direct: "The days when the European Union and individual EU member states were more critical of the rule of law and governance in Central Asia are gone, unfortunately." He notes that authoritarian backsliding is visible across several EU partner countries, not just Kazakhstan.

The economic backdrop explains why. In 2025, Kazakhstan became the European Union's second-largest source of crude oil, supplying 55.8 million tons and accounting for 12.8% of total EU oil imports, according to the European Council. Only the United States supplied more. The EU's energy security policy now treats Central Asian supply as a necessary hedge against disruption from Russia and the Middle East.

Anceschi frames the trade-off in unsparing terms. "Wherever you buy your oil and gas from, you are never going to buy it from a democracy," he said, "unless it is Norway. So, in that sense, there is not much of a choice."

Walking the geopolitical tightrope

Kazakhstan occupies an unusual position in the current conflict. It has not formally opposed the European sanctions regime against Russia. It has not joined it either. That studied neutrality has allowed Astana to maintain commercial ties with Moscow while keeping access to Western markets open. Anceschi describes the country as occupying a "geopolitical comfort zone": affected by the war, but not participating in it.

Maintaining that position will grow harder. Russia has shown its willingness to project military force into neighbouring states. China, meanwhile, has deepened its economic presence across Central Asia through infrastructure investment and trade agreements. Meister argues that Kazakhstan is actively seeking to reduce its exposure to both. The country "does not want to be too dependent on Russia," he said, pointing to the lessons of Ukraine, "and it does not want to be dependent on China." That logic pushes Kazakhstan toward Europe, both as a buyer for its commodities and as a potential source of investment.

There is a domestic dimension to this balancing act as well. Anceschi argues that foreign policy under Tokayev serves an internal purpose: "Of course, it is a task with only one ultimate goal, which is the preservation of authoritarian rule. So even in this case, foreign policy is becoming an instrument for achieving internal stability." Keeping relations with Moscow, Beijing and Brussels all functional reduces the risk that any external power might decide to support domestic challengers to the regime.

The Central Asian bloc and the search for alternatives

Meister also points to a regional dynamic that receives less attention. Facing pressure from larger neighbours, the five Central Asian republics have begun coordinating more closely, working to settle disputes among themselves and present a more unified front externally. Kazakhstan has been part of this effort, seeking to diversify its relationships beyond the three great powers. Arab states and East Asian economies have featured in that outreach.

For Europe, the calculation is straightforward. Kazakhstan is the least repressive authoritarian state in Central Asia, Meister notes, with some space for civil society, though that space is contracting. It is also the most economically significant country in the region for EU interests, given its oil exports and its potential role in transit corridors that avoid Russian territory.

What the new Kurultai will and will not do

The single-chamber Kurultai that convenes after August 23 will be a more streamlined instrument of presidential authority than its predecessor. By removing the upper chamber, Tokayev eliminates a potential institutional check. By restricting election to party lists, he ensures that no independent figure can build a constituency outside the party structure. By allowing only registered parties, seven of which are admitted, he controls the range of permissible debate.

Battalova's critique cuts to the structural point. Whether a parliament has one chamber or two matters less than whether it can hold the executive to account. The new constitution, she suggests, does nothing to strengthen that capacity. If anything, the removal of independent candidacies weakens it further.

The limits of neutrality

Kazakhstan's refusal to take sides on Ukraine has served it well so far, but the strain is visible. Russian officials have made clear they regard Central Asia as within their sphere of influence. Western governments, for their part, want Kazakhstan to be more cooperative on sanctions enforcement. Chinese investment continues to flow, bringing its own expectations.

The country's capacity to resist pressure from any direction depends partly on how many alternatives it can maintain. Meister's observation that Kazakhstan is actively diversifying its external relationships, reaching beyond Russia, China and the EU to Arab and East Asian partners, suggests that Astana understands the risks of over-reliance on any single bloc. Whether that diversification can succeed fast enough to protect Kazakhstan's room for manoeuvre is an open question.

For the European Union, the immediate priority is securing energy supply and transit routes. Eurostat's trade data shows how significant Kazakh oil has become to the bloc's import mix. The longer-term question is whether pragmatic engagement with an increasingly authoritarian Kazakhstan actually encourages reform, or whether it simply rewards the consolidation of power that Tokayev is engineering through elections like this one.