Amanat (political party)

Amanat (Kazakh: Аманат, lit. 'Deposit'; officially styled as AMANAT, Kazakh pronunciation: [ɑmɑnɑˑt]), previously known as Nur Otan (Kazakh: Нұр Отан, lit. 'Radiant Fatherland') until 2022, is a political party in Kazakhstan. Being the largest to date, it has been the ruling party of the country from 1999, with a membership claiming to be of over 762,000 people in 2007. The Amanat has been led by Erlan Qoşanov since 26 April 2022.

Under the 21-year leadership of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev since the party's founding, Amanat had constantly won Kazakhstan's presidential and national parliamentary elections, more often in recent history with a supermajority number of votes amidst claims of rigging and lack of viable opposition.

The party was originally founded on 12 February 1999 as simply Otan (Kazakh: Отан, lit. 'Fatherland') by former Prime Minister Sergey Tereshchenko, after the merger of several previously independent pro-presidential parties, including the People's Union of Kazakhstan Unity, the Liberal Movement of Kazakhstan, and the "For Kazakhstan — 2030" Movement. From there, the Otan eventually absorbed other parties such as the Democratic Party, People's Cooperative Party, Asar, and more recently the Civic and Agrarian parties in 2006 to become the biggest, gaining status of the party of power. That same year in December, the Otan was renamed to Nur Otan. In the 2007 legislative elections, the Nur Otan swept all the contested seats in the lower-house Mäjilis, leaving no other parties to have representation until 2012, though leaving its dominant-party control of the Parliament.

The Amanat has been viewed as a secular, conservative, catch-all party with an authoritarian form of governance that functions by its branches throughout the country and presence within nationwide institutional resources and maintains offices in all 16 of Kazakhstan's administrative divisions, as well as 241 local offices which greatly contribute to the party's existence. The Amanat views itself as a party which promotes reforms in civil service, economic diversity, open government, the rule of law, and national interests.