<span style="color: #222222;">Kazakhstan today elected the hand-picked successor of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev with 70 per cent of the vote, exit polls showed, as police arrested hundreds of opposition protesters.<br />''<br />''The victory of career diplomat Kassym Jomart-Tokayev was never in doubt after he received the blessing of powerful Nazarbayev, who had led the Central Asian nation for the last three decades.<br />''<br />''Tokayev, 66, took just over 70 per cent of the vote, according to the government-approved "Public Opinion" pollster. His nearest opposition rival Amirzhan Kosanov had around 15 per cent.<br />''<br />''The day was marked by the biggest protests the Muslim-majority country has seen in three years, as demonstrators urged a "boycott" of what they said was a fixed election. Human Rights Watch called the prospect of a genuine political transition "an illusion" and noted the persistence of rights abuses under Tokayev's interim presidency.</span><br />