Asia Pacific
02:30, 10-Jun-2019
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wins Kazakh presidential election with 70%, exit polls
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Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has won the Kazakhstan presidential election with over 70 percent, according to exit polls.
The 66-year-old has ruled the central Asian country since late March when he took over from former leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, who resigned after nearly 30 years in power.
Tokayev was running against six other candidates in Sunday's vote, but the other candidates were not expected to provide a big challenge.
He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs until January 2007, when he was elected as a Chairman of the Senate.
Kazakhstan has eleven million eligible voters, a 1.5 million increase on the number of people that were eligible to vote in the last presidential election held in 2015.
Kazakhstan has a population of 18.6 million.
Tokayev becomes only the second Kazakh president since the country became the last Soviet republic to declare independence from the USSR in 1991.