Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s strongman, resigns
ONCE A STRONGMAN has been in power for 30 years, it is reasonable to assume he will leave office only in a coup or a coffin. But Nursultan Nazarbayev, the 78-year-old who has run Kazakhstan since 1989, is trying to find a third way. On March 19th he took to the airwaves to announce his retirement as president of the oil-rich Central Asian country. The announcement marks the end of an era, not just for Kazakhstan but for the region: Mr Nazarbayev was its last Soviet-era leader left in power. When the former steelworker ascended to the leadership, Kazakhstan was still part of the Soviet Union. He presided over independence in 1991 and had governed ever since.
A showman to the last, Mr Nazarbayev signed his resignation decree on live television. On March 20th Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, the 65-year-old chairman of the Senate, was sworn in for the rest of Mr Nazarbayev’s term, as the constitution stipulates. Mr Tokayev immediately ordered Astana, the vainglorious capital Mr Nazarbayev founded, rechristened “Nursultan” in his honour. Shymkent, Kazakhstan’s third-largest city, rushed to rename its main street “Nazarbayev”.
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Rumours had long swirled that Mr Nazarbayev was preparing to step down. Yet his physical and mental health seem robust; there had been no inkling the announcement was coming this week. Fully half of Kazakhstan’s 18m citizens have never known any other leader. Mr Nazarbayev said that it was time to hand power to a younger generation. But his retirement is less a graceful bowing-out than a manoeuvre designed to allow him to micromanage the transition to a new leader, just as he has micromanaged every other aspect of Kazakh politics for so many years.
Gone but not forgotten
Mr Nazarbayev has a special legal status that grants him considerable post-retirement powers. The Leader of the Nation (his official title) will still chair the Security Council, which gives him direct sway over the armed forces. He also enjoys the right to intervene in policymaking for the rest of his life. He is immune from prosecution for actions committed in office. His and his family’s assets cannot be seized. His eldest daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, replaced Mr Tokayev as chairman of the Senate, placing her next in line to the presidency.
By securing Kazakhstan’s independence, Mr Nazarbayev literally put it on the map, as he pointed out in his resignation speech. He has kept it there by maintaining cordial ties with his giant neighbours, Russia and China, as well as with America. Mr Nazarbayev also expressed pride at the relative harmony among the more-than-100 ethnic groups in Kazakhstan. He took credit, too, for dragging the country out of the economic stagnation of the post-Soviet period into petrodollar-fuelled prosperity, although he failed to mention that his cronies have benefited more than his people. Mr Nazarbayev’s most brazen claim was that he had built a democracy, despite presiding over three decades of rigged elections, jailed critics and muzzled media.
Elections are due to be held at the end of next year, although an early vote is not ruled out. Mr Nazarbayev did not name a preferred candidate, but it seems inconceivable that he does not have one in mind. That could be Mr Tokayev or another, younger lieutenant, such as Askar Mamin, 53, who was promoted to prime minister in a recent cabinet reshuffle. If he intends his daughter to become president, he has been careful not to signal it openly.
The new president will certainly not emerge from the ranks of the opposition, since Mr Nazarbayev has hounded it out of existence. His preferred successor will almost certainly saunter into office after a rubberstamp election—although perhaps not with the 98% of the vote that Mr Nazarbayev is supposed to have won last time. Presumably, Mr Nazarbayev does not intend a big political opening, or he would have started one while still in office himself. As he reassured his people when announcing his momentous decision: “I will be staying with you.”