In contrast to both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, the struggle between President Nursultan Nazarbaev and Kazakhstan's Soviet-elected legislature over the timing of elections to a new parliament marked the middle rather than the beginning of intense negotiations over a new electoral system. A committee composed of presidential advisors, legal experts, and select Supreme Soviet deputies had already begun secretly drafting a new electoral law in the presidential apparat in the spring of 1993. It was only toward the end of that year, when the committee had developed a law acceptable to Nazarbaev, that he began to garner support for dissolving the Supreme Soviet and holding early elections to a new parliament. It was also only at this time that the electoral law was first openly discussed in the press and submitted to the entire Supreme Soviet for its approval.

At the opening of Kazakhstan's Supreme Soviet's 11th session in October 1993, during which the draft electoral law was scheduled for debate, both Nazarbaev and the Supreme Soviet's Chairperson insisted that neither of them supported holding early elections to a new parliament. Less than a month later, Nazarbaev publicly shifted his position. Similar to the situation that President Akaev faced in Kyrgyzstan, Nazarbaev now wanted to hold early elections while the majority of deputies insisted on serving out the last eighteen months of their terms.