2021 Nur-Sultan City Mäslihat election

Following the 2016 City Mäslihat elections, all the contested seats in the Mäslihat was won by Nur Otan members. Despite the race being non-partisan, many independent candidates complained about being barred from running due to alleged "inconsistency of the data in the tax returns".[2]

After President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced constitutional reforms in 2017 which would give lawmakers more power and decentralize the government, an amendment was passed by the Parliament which would allow for local elections to the Mäslihats be more partisan, thus giving greater role for political parties to nominate its candidates.[3] However this made practically impossible for self-nominated independent candidates to be compete in the elections since the law requires all Mäslihat councillors to be part of political parties.[4]

The City Mäslihat councillors are directly elected through proportional representation for a 5-year term and must win the 7% electoral threshold to win any seats. If only one party manages to pass the threshold, then the other party with the second most received votes is awarded enough seats to have representations in the City Mäslihat.[4]