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WORLD NEWS Wednesday 20 March 2019

Kazakhstan’s president to step down after 30 years in power

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV the vote in the most recent
JAMES ELLINGWORTH election, in 2015, when
Associated Press elected for another five-
MOSCOW (AP) — President year term.
Nursultan Nazarbayev, Nazarbayev’s resignation
the only leader that inde- will set the stage for a po-
pendent Kazakhstan has tential battle between Rus-
ever known, abruptly an- sia and the United States
nounced his resignation for influence with the suc-
Tuesday after three de- cessor government.
cades in power, raising Kremlin spokesman Dmi-
uncertainty over the future try Peskov said that Russian
course of the Central Asian President Vladimir Putin Pu-
country. tin had spoken with Naz-
In a televised address to arbayev by telephone ear-
the oil-rich nation, the lier Tuesday but didn’t say
78-year-old Nazarbayev what they had discussed.
said he has made the “dif- He wouldn’t say if the Ka-
ficult” decision to terminate zakh leader had given Pu-
his authority as president, tin advance warning of his
effective Wednesday. move.
He did not give a specif- Konstantin Kosachev, the
ic reason for the surprise head of the foreign affairs
move, but noted that he committee in the upper
would have marked 30 house of the Russian parlia-
years on the job later this In this file photo taken on Oct. 18, 2018, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev arrives for ment, said Nazarbayev will
year and added that he the ASEM 12 in Brussels. retain clout in Kazakhstan
sees his mission as secur- Associated Press and “there will be no radi-
ing a smooth transition of office in Geneva between widely praised for main- architecture including the cal changes in foreign or
power. 2011 and 2013. taining stability and ethnic soaring glass pyramid of home policies.”
“As the founder of the inde- Kazakhstan, despite having peace in Kazakhstan but the Palace of Peace and Nazarbayev was born into
pendent state of Kazakh- a population of only about he also has faced criticism Accord, dedicated to har- a poor rural laborer’s family
stan, I see my future task 18 million, is the ninth-larg- for marginalizing the po- mony among religious and on July 6, 1940. As a young
in ensuring the ascent to est country in the world litical opposition and cre- ethnic groups. adult, he worked in harsh
power of a new generation with an area of about 2.7 ating what is effectively a In 2010, Nazarbayev was conditions at a steel plant’s
of leaders, who will contin- million square kilometers (1 one-party state. awarded the title of “Lead- blast furnace and at age
ue reforms,” he said. million square miles). It bor- He has maintained a deli- er of the Nation,” which 22 he joined the Commu-
Nazarbayev will retain the ders Russia to the north and cate balance between comes with lifelong immu- nist Party. He worked his
honorary title of “Elbasy” or China to the east and has Russia and the West, lead- nity from prosecution and way up in the party, went
“Leader of the Nation” and extensive oil reserves that ing Kazakhstan to join a as-yet untested powers of to university and became
continue to wield consid- make it strategically and Russia-dominated eco- veto over some govern- known for his compara-
erable political power. He economically important. nomic alliance of ex-Sovi- ment policies. tively candid assessments
said he will remain chair- Nazarbayev took the helm et nations, but cultivating He departs at a time of rare of the Soviet Union’s short-
man of the nation’s Securi- in Kazakhstan as its Com- close energy ties and other open protest against the comings.
ty Council and the head of munist Party chief of the re- links with the West. government. That turn of mind positioned
the ruling Nur Otan party. public in 1989 when it was He was lauded abroad for He fired his prime minister him in the reformist camp
“I will stay with you, as a part of the Soviet Union, modernizing the oil industry and cabinet last month fol- that came to ascendancy
citizen, a man who loves and he was first elected its and his decision to give up lowing a wave of protests when Mikhail Gorbachev
our country,” he said. “I will president weeks before the the nuclear weapons that by Kazakh women calling became leader of the So-
serve you until the end of 1991 Soviet collapse gave Kazakhstan had inherited for more financial support viet Union in 1985.
my days. “ the country its indepen- from the Soviet Union. for children and safer hous- Nazarbayev supported
He said that upper house dence. In 1997, Nazarbayev ing after a fire in which five Russian President Boris Yelt-
speaker Kassym-Jomart In those days, Kazakhstan moved the country’s capi- children died. Soon after, sin during the failed coup
Tokayev will serve as in- was a backwater region tal from Almaty to the re- he announced a program attempt against Gorbach-
terim head of state in line best known for prisons, nu- mote northern city of As- of more generous spending ev by Communist hardlin-
with the constitution un- clear testing sites and be- tana in what was widely for large families. ers. Nazarbayev opposed
til a new election can be ing the home of the launch considered a way to fuse Nazarbayev has extended the breakup of the Soviet
held. Tokayev is a former facility of the Soviet space the ethnic-Russian minor- his tenure by landslide vic- Union, but was forced to
prime minister and foreign program, the Baikonur Cos- ity in the north to the new tories in successive elec- take Kazakhstan out of the
minister who also served as modrome. Kazakh state. The new city tions and plebiscites. He union as it collapsed in De-
director-general of the U.N. Nazarbayev has been was filled with post-modern took nearly 98 percent of cember 1991.q