The mechanics were set before the hall filled. A decree signed on Wednesday convened the session; the CEC registered all 145 deputies on Thursday, its chair Nurlan Abdirov handing out credentials and calling the chamber the country's highest representative body exercising legislative power.
“At the opening of the first session of the Kurultai I will propose that deputies consider this matter”
The chamber the voters built is new in more than name. 111 of the 145 are first-time parliamentarians; 49 are women, a third of the house against roughly a fifth in the old lower chamber; 18 deputies are under 36. Adilet's 110 seats convert 71.17% of the vote into 75.86% of the chamber, and Auyl, Respublica, Ak Zhol and OSDP split the rest.
The order of business is constitutional. A speaker comes first, by secret ballot. The Bektenov government's mandate returns to the new house; once the president appoints a prime minister, that appointment starts a 10-day clock to propose the next structure and composition, with ministers working on until it forms. And the president told a teachers' conference on Wednesday what he wants read first: the government's June bill barring social networks for anyone under 16. "At the opening of the first session of the Kurultai I will propose that deputies consider this matter," he said.
Behind the schedule sits the appointment the constitution added and the president has not named: a vice-president, promised within a week or 10 days of last Sunday's briefing, which puts the outer edge at September 2. "I think it will be a well-known person, whom you all know well," was as far as he went.
The session opened on the state broadcaster's live feed at 11:00; by the time this edition closed, the vote counts had not reached the wires, and the results, the speaker's name first, belong to the evening. What is already fixed is the shape of the week the chamber inherits: a government to confirm, a vice-president to seat by Tuesday's outer edge, and a first bill addressed to the country's youngest users.