Kazakhstan Sets 35.8 Billion Tenge Budget for November Local Elections, 70% for Election Staff

Kazakhstan's Central Election Commission said on 2 November that the government has agreed a 35.8 billion tenge budget for the extraordinary elections to local representative councils, known as maslikhats, scheduled for 29 November 2026. Commission member Mikhail Bortnik presented the figure at a briefing and said it had been coordinated with the finance and national economy ministries. The sum is a planned election budget, not an audited account of money already spent.

Bortnik said approximately 70% would pay election-commission personnel. Applied to the stated total, that is about 25.06 billion tenge, leaving roughly 10.74 billion tenge for other planned costs. Those figures are calculations from the announced proportions, not separately verified budget line items. The commission expects to engage another 3,022 district election commissions with 15,110 members, according to separately reported remarks from the briefing.

The budget is 1.5 billion tenge, or about 4.4%, above the 34.3 billion tenge previously budgeted for August's Kurultai parliamentary election, according to BES.media's comparison. The two votes have different administrative requirements, so this comparison alone establishes neither excess spending nor irregularity. Kazakhstan's election commission published a record of its 2 November maslikhat-election meeting, while independent local reporters at Informburo and BES.media documented the funding announcement.

The November contest is scheduled to fill 3,447 seats across 228 maslikhats, BES.media reported, with 10,971 registered candidates. Public accountability questions for follow-up include the official itemized appropriation, actual payments to commissions, procurement for polling operations and the post-election reconciliation of spending against the budget. The materials reviewed for this report do not establish misuse of election funds.