Who’s next? Kazakh strongman leaves succession riddle
| focus |
 |
ALMATY — The inevitability of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s victory in presidential elections masks a gaping uncertainty as to who will succeed the man who has dominated Kazakhstan for more than two decades.
Nazarbayev has ruled the energy rich steppe nation of 16 million since even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, enjoying a sequence of ceremonial presidential election victories untroubled by a serious opposition challenge.
He is expected to cruise to victory in Sunday’s polls after barely bothering to campaign and Nazarbayev’s advisors predict he will stand in the next polls in 2016 to carry out a modernization drive up to 2020.
Seen by his supporters as a Central Asian national leader comparable to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey or Mahatma Gandhi in India, few in Kazakhstan question the prospect of another decade of Nazarbayev in office..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110402com3.html
0 comments
Post a Comment