Kazakhstan in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Kazakhstan's participation in the 2020 contest was confirmed in June 2020, having been invited to participate by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).[5] Khabar announced on 10 August 2020 that artists will be able to submit their applications for the national final until 20 August 2020.[6] From 684 applications submitted, a nine-member jury panel selected 30 acts for the online semi-final.[7] The jury panel consisted of Zhenis Seidullaevich (composer), Dinara Bisembina (Chairman of the Board of Khabar), Bagym Mukhitdenova (music producer), Kairat Baekenov (singer and composer), Erlan Bekchurin (music producer), Zhanar Dugalova (singer), Amre (singer), Dinaya (singer) and Madi Syzdykov (singer).[8][9]

The online semi-final took place between 24 and 31 August 2020 where users were able vote for their favorite artists on Khabar's official website. The top twelve acts with the most votes proceeded to the televised national final and were announced on 1 September 2020.[6][10]

The final took place on 26 September 2020 where twelve competing acts performed their candidate Junior Eurovision songs written for them by composers directly invited by Khabar in a televised production.[13] The winner, "Forever" performed by Karakat Bashanova, was determined by a 50/50 combination of both public telephone vote and the votes of jury members made up of music professionals.[14]

"Forever" is composed by Khamit Shangaliyev, who had also composed "Armanyńnan qalma", the Kazakh entry for the 2019 contest,[15] and written by Ardak Yeleusiz[16] and Abulkhair Adam.[17] The song is dedicated to her deceased father.[18]

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.[20] 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.[21]

The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 27 November 2020 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 Sunday 29 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 three songs.[22] 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.

Points awarded to Kazakhstan[23] Score Country 12 points  Georgia  Russia 10 points  Belarus  Malta  Serbia 8 points  Netherlands 7 points  Ukraine 6 points 5 points 4 points  France  Spain 3 points  Germany  Poland 2 points 1 point Kazakhstan received 69 points from the online vote

Points awarded by Kazakhstan[23] Score Country 12 points  Belarus 10 points  Georgia 8 points  France 7 points  Netherlands 6 points  Poland 5 points  Germany 4 points  Russia 3 points  Serbia 2 points  Spain 1 point  Ukraine