On 25 November 2017, Channel 31 of Kazakhstan revealed their intention to participate in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018.[2] Initial claims emerged on 22 December 2017 from both the Kazakh Minister of Culture and Sports, Arystanbek Mukhamediuly; and the Director General of Channel 31, Bagdat Kodzhahmetov; that Kazakhstan had applied to become a member of the EBU, with the hope of participating both in the Eurovision Song Contest and the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.[3] Kodzhahmetov invited Daneliya Tuleshova, winner of the fourth season of Ukraine's version of The Voice Kids, to take part in the casting process to represent Kazakhstan in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.[4] The next day, however, the EBU made a statement the following day rejecting the possibility of Kazakhstan becoming an active member of the EBU, since Kazakhstan is neither within the European Broadcasting Area nor the Council of Europe.[5]
Before Junior Eurovision
Prior to the 2018 contest, Kazakhstan had sent a delegation to the 2013 and 2017 contests and broadcast the latter live.[6] Channel 31 also stated its intention to broadcast the contests in 2018 and 2019.[2]Khabar Agency has been an associate member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since January 2016.[7]
On 29 July 2019, Yerzhan Maksim was internally chosen to represent Kazakhstan in Gliwice.[8] His song "Armanyńnan qalma", composed by Khamit Shangaliyev and written by Aldabergenov Daniyar and Timur Balymbetov, was released on 10 October 2019.
At Junior Eurovision
During the opening ceremony and the running order draw which both took place on 18 November 2019, Kazakhstan was drawn to perform tenth on 24 November 2019, following Wales and preceding Poland.[9]
Voting
The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.[10]
The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 22 November 2019 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on 24 November at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for a minimum of three and a maximum of five songs.[11] They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.
