Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev won a landslide re-election victory for another seven-year term, according to official preliminary results released Monday by the country's Central Election Commission (CEC).

Nazarbayev, who has been the country's president since 1991, has garnered 91 percent of the vote in Sunday's polls, CEC Chairman Onalsyn Zhumabekov said.

Nazarbayev, 65, told his supporters on Monday that the people of Kazakhstan had won.

"I am sure the people of Kazakhstan won, a people who approved of my work for 14 years in strengthening the economy and prestige of our country," Nazarbayev said in the capital Astana.

According to the CEC, Nazarbayev's closest challenger Zharmakhan Tuyakbai got only 6.64 percent of the vote.

"We also need an opposition. We will listen to them and work with them," Nazarbayev said.

Nazarbayev first became the country's president in 1991 and was reelected in 1999. Under his rule, Kazakhstan, with a population of 15 million, has gained eye-catching achievements in economy and social affairs.

Over the past seven years, Kazakhstan's economy has grown by some 75 percent, and the annual per-capita gross domestic product has risen from 700 US dollars to 3,000 dollars in the past 10 years.

It has transformed from a laggard in the ex-Soviet Union into one of the most prosperous and stable countries in the region, as well as an oil giant in the world.

Kazakhstan's good relations with the Unites States, the European Union and its two neighbors Russia and China have provided a good external environment for the country's domestic reforms and development.

Nazarbayev has pledged that if re-elected, he would allow democratic changes, consolidate economic achievements and pay more attention to the social sector.

Source: Xinhua