The City Mäslihat is composed of 29 councillors who are represented by single-member constituency and are elected by a secret ballot every 5 years according to the Clause 2 of Article 86 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan, Section VIII "Local state government and self-government".

[2] The law was approved on 29 June 2018 through a constitutional amendment and came into force starting from 1 January 2019.

The Mäslihat was established on 10 December 1993 after the Supreme Council of Kazakhstan adopted the law "On local representative and executive bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan", which made significant changes to the name and structure of local state bodies.

In June 2018, the city was granted as a status of "republican significance", thus separating itself from the Turkistan Region.

[5] That same year, the city councillors for the first time voted for a Senator to represent the newly created subdivision.