Voting in the republican referendum on the adoption of the new constitution of Kazakhstan has ended, and polling stations closed at 20:00 local time.
According to preliminary data, the number of voters who received votes reached 9,126,850 citizens, meaning that the participation rate reached 73.24% of the total number of voters. He writes Informburo.kz. “power” NotesThis is the highest participation rate since the 2019 presidential elections, when 77.5% of citizens went to the polls.
This means that the referendum has already taken place – for this it was necessary for more than half of the electorate to vote.
The results of the opinion polls are expected to appear after midnight, and the final participation numbers will be known after the closure of all polling stations outside the country. The location in San Francisco will be the last to close – at 8.00 on March 16 Kazakh time.
Electoral commissions have already begun counting. By law, the counting time must not exceed 12 hours from the moment it begins.
The new constitution was drawn up in just 22 days. He makes sweeping changes to the structure of government. For example, it strengthens the power of the president, places domestic law above international law, prevents political parties from accepting foreign funding, enshrines the concept of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and also affects the scope of the Russian language.
The changes affect 84% of all articles of the current Constitution, but during the vote voters had only one question: “Do you accept the new Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the draft of which was published in the media on February 12, 2026?” Voters can only vote on the entire document, not for or against individual amendments.