Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has won re-election by a landslide today.
However, the opposition in the former Soviet republic has alleged vote-rigging.
Mr Nazarbayev has held power since 1989 in Kazakhstan, which has attracted billions of dollars of Western, Russian and Chinese investment as production from its oil fields grows, but has never held a poll judged free and fair by Western monitors.
To applause in the Central Election Commission offices, chairman Onalsyn Zhumabekov said early results showed Mr Nazarbayev had won 91 per cent of yesterday's ballot while the main opposition challenger Zharmakhan Tuyakbai had 6.64 per cent.
Mr Nazarbayev was due to appear at a stadium in Astana, capital of the ethnically diverse Central Asian country of only 15 million people, shortly after the announcement.
The results tallied with most people's expectations, although they gave Mr Nazarbayev nearly 8 per cent more than the only exit poll carried out by a well-known pollster, a Gallup survey conducted with the International Republican Institute.
The main opposition For a Just Kazakhstan group has accused the West of putting oil before democracy.
Mr Nazarbayev came to power as the Communist Party head of Kazakhstan, then won presidential elections in 1991 with 98.8 per cent of the vote and in 1999 with 79.8 per cent.
Mr Tuyakbai's campaign team said it had evidence of electoral fraud.