Some 552 candidates were contesting 67 of the 77 seats in the Kazakh parliament, with 10 seats directly allocated to parties. It was the first election in the former Soviet republic to see genuine opposition parties in contention since Nazarbayev, under pressure from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), signed a new election law which established an independent electoral commission. Previous polls held in 1999 are widely believed to have been manipulated by the Nazarbayev administration. The country has applied to hold the chair of the OSCE in 2009. Some 300 OSCE observers as well as 13 from the European Council were on hand to monitor the polls. Of the 15 million inhabitants of Kazakhstan, official figures said 8.5 million were registered to vote. Despite Nazarbayev's assertions that Sunday's polls were "honest and open", rumours persisted of heavy-handed government tactics including intimidation of opposition candidates and unbalanced controls on access to state media. More results are expected Monday. --SP 2146 Local Time 1846 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/203057