The numbers were laid out by Central Election Commission member Mikhail Bortnik on Tuesday: resolution 593 of 9 July allocates 34.3 billion tenge, roughly $72 million at the 14 July official rate of 477.11, for a campaign that will run 10,674 polling stations staffed by more than 70,000 commission members; about 8.5 billion tenge, a quarter of the total, covers organization, from ballots to transport. Kazakh commentators note the bill runs about 900 million tenge, or 2.7%, above the 2023 parliamentary elections, roughly the accumulated inflation since.
The funding route is itself a date stamp. The money comes from the government’s reserve because the 2026 budget was drafted for a state with a two-chamber parliament; the constitution that abolished the Mazhilis and Senate took effect on 1 July, the election decree followed the same day, and the fiscal system is now catching up with the institutional one at a run.
One design detail deserves the file. Parties pay an electoral deposit of 15 minimum wages, 1.2 million tenge, per candidate, but the ladder of discounts is keyed to performance in the 2023 Mazhilis elections: above 5% then, no deposit now; 3 to 5%, half; 1 to 3%, seventy percent. Entry to the chamber that replaces the Mazhilis is priced by results achieved in the Mazhilis, which quietly carries the old system’s hierarchy into the new one. Adilet’s list, the largest, bills out at over 237 million tenge; 546 candidates are registered nationwide for 145 seats, and the campaign window opens on 23 July.