President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s sudden absence from work and reported hospitalization has exposed the uncertainty over who could succeed the man who has ruled Kazakhstan for over two decades.
The 71-year-old Nazarbayev has dominated the short history of independent Kazakhstan, constructing a system of power around himself following the fall of the Soviet Union.
The German newspaper Bild on Tuesday reported that Nazarbayev underwent a prostate operation at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg as the president disappeared from public view for almost two weeks.
The official silence that followed in the glitzy Kazakh capital, Astana, on the president’s whereabouts or his state of his health, only fueled speculation.
Nazarbayev returned to work on Thursday after a 10-day absence, with officials saying he has simply been on holiday, but questions about his possible successor remained.
“One of distressing things in Kazakhstan is that no one can say what will happen in three days,” political observer Aidos Sarimov said. “The whole system is created and sharpened for one man, who will never give up power voluntarily.”
It is difficult to predict how the political situation will unfold in the future, despite the official claim of stability and security, he said.
“No one can tell you what will happen in Kazakhstan after Nazarbayev,” he said.
Any abrupt departure from the political stage could send shock waves through the economic and political establishment in Kazakhstan, the second-biggest energy producer among former Soviet republics. Last year, parliament gave Nazarbayev a title of “Elbasy,” Kazakh for “leader of the nation,” granting him immunity from prosecution for life and the power to dictate policy after retirement. He enjoys some genuine support from the population and is seen by some as a leader comparable to Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or India’s Mahatma Gandhi. Yet, he has never dropped a hint of his successor. The hospitalization report is “a sharp reminder that the Kazakh leader has to start working on a road map of transition of his power,” said Lilit Gevorgyan, a London analyst with US-based IHS Global Insight.
“This uncertainty is likely to unnerve investors wary of Kazakhstan’s political [future] as well as the economic future,” she said.
Political observers have long cited Timur Kulibayev — the husband of Dinara, the president’s middle daughter — as a possible successor to Nazarbayev. Other possible candidates for the presidency include Prime Minister Karim Massimov, the Economy Minister Kairat Kelimbetov, and the powerful mayor of Astana, Imangali Tasmagambetov.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion