Kazakh strongman’s absence exposes succession uncertainty focus 07/25/2011

Kazakh strongman’s absence exposes succession uncertainty

focus

07/25/2011
ALMATY — President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s sudden absence from work and reported hospitalization has the exposed the uncertainty over who could succeed the man who has ruled Kazakhstan for over two decades.

The 71-year-old Nazarbayev has dominated short history of independent Kazakhstan, constructing a system of power around himself following the fall of the Soviet Union.

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 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..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110725com3.html