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🇰🇿 Kazakhstan: Politics & Democracy

By V-Dem's measure, no — Kazakhstan scores 13.1 on the 0–100 liberal democracy index, which places it firmly in the autocratic range.

Liberal democracy rank (2025)

#127 of 179

Score (0–100)

13.1

10-year change

+2.1

Full rankings →

Current leaders

Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev

Head of State · Nur Otan

since 2019-01-01

Älihan Smaiylov

Head of Government · Amanat

since 2022-01-05

Democracy trend

05010019902025
Kazakhstan — V-Dem liberal democracy index, 1990–2025 (0–100 scale). Latest: 13.1 in 2025.

Upcoming elections

2026 Kazakh legislative election

2026-08-23T00:00:00Z

Voting alignment

Kazakhstan's closest UN General Assembly voting partners since 1946:

Frequently asked questions

Is Kazakhstan a democracy?

By V-Dem's measure, no — Kazakhstan scores 13.1 on the 0–100 liberal democracy index, which places it firmly in the autocratic range. It ranks #127 of 179 countries in 2025.

Is democracy in Kazakhstan improving or declining?

Kazakhstan's V-Dem liberal democracy score has improved by 2.1 points over the past decade, standing at 13.1 in 2025 (1-year change: −0.2).

Who leads Kazakhstan?

Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev is Kazakhstan's head of state (Nur Otan); Älihan Smaiylov serves as head of government (Amanat).

When is the next election in Kazakhstan?

2026 Kazakh legislative election is scheduled for 2026-08-23T00:00:00Z.

More on Kazakhstan

Data source: Coppedge, Michael et al. 'V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v15', Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, https://www.v-dem.net, CC BY 4.0.