March 02, 2011

Kazakhstan's Central Election Commission has announced that it has officially registered four candidates to run in the April 3 presidential election.

Incumbent Nursultan Nazarbaev, Zhambyl Akhmetbekov of the Communist People's Party, Gani Kasymov of the Patriots' Party, and independent candidate and environmentalist Mels Eleusizov have until April 1 to campaign.

Twenty-two people originally announced their intention to run: 11 failed the mandatory language proficiency test and the other seven were unable to meet other registration requirements.

compiled from agency reports