New Kazakh Prez sworn in

Moscow, March 20

The speaker of Kazakhstan’s parliament was sworn in as interim president on Wednesday, a day after longtime leader Nursultan Nazarbayev abruptly resigned.

Nazarbayev surprised many by announcing in a televised address on Tuesday that he would step down after nearly 30 years in office that had included the whole of Kazakhstan’s time as an independent nation.

The 78-year-old Nazarbayev attended Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s inauguration on Wednesday, entering to lengthy applause from assembled dignitaries before taking a seat on a podium behind the lectern where Tokayev gave an address.

Minutes after Tokayev was sworn in, he suggested that the Kazakh capital Astana be renamed Nursultan to honour the outgoing President.

Tokayev in his speech praised Nazarbayev as “an outstanding reformer” who was widely expected to continue to wield influence as the chairman of the security council and head of the ruling party. “Nazarbayev is not stepping down; he is stepping up,” Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow, tweeted. 

“He will oversee power transit over the next few years.”  Trenin said Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose fourth term in office endes in 2024, was also likely to use the option of the president “mentor” later on.

Rumours about Nazarbayev’s resignation and a possible plan for succession have been swirling for years.  Some speculated that the president might be grooming his daughter, who had served as the deputy prime minister and was a lawmaker now, for succession.  Nazarbayev had not indicated that he had a successor in mind. 

Nazarbayev took the helm in Kazakhstan as its Communist Party chief of the republic in 1989 when it was part of the Soviet Union, and he was first elected its president weeks before the 1991 Soviet collapse gave the country its independence. — AP