The President Of Oil-Rich Kazakhstan Resigns

[Swordsmyth]

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan of 30 years and the last Soviet-era leader in power in a former Soviet republic, unexpectedly resigned on Tuesday, but is widely expected to retain power over the country’s politics and policies.
Nazarbayev, viewed as an autocrat as many of the other rulers of Central Asian nations, noted in his resignation speech that during his three-decade tenure since 1989 Kazakhstan managed to attract foreign investment in its commodities industries and set up a sovereign wealth fund thanks to oil and gas revenues.
Kazakhstan has tripled its oil production over the past 30 years and is currently taking part in the OPEC/non-OPEC deal to reduce output. Kazakhstan’s production cap under the agreement is 1.86 million bpd, down by 40,000 bpd from its November production level.
“I have made a difficult decision for myself - to resign from the powers of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan,” Nazarbayev said in an address on Tuesday, but noted that he would remain the Chairman of the Security Council, “which is vested with serious powers.”
“That is to say, I am staying with you,” said Nazarbayev in what analysts see as a prepared political transition that would still give the now former president considerable power over Kazakhstan.
Nazarbayev, who was the only president of independent Kazakhstan until yesterday, handed over the presidential power to the Chairman of the Senate, Kassym-Jomart Kemelovich Tokayev, until the end of the presidential term in office, April 2020. Kazakhstan is slated to hold presidential and general elections next year.

More at: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-N...s-Resigns.html

[Swordsmyth]

Kazakhstan's parliament on Wednesday voted to rename the country's capital in honour of long-time ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev, a day after he resigned as president."Astana is now officially renamed Nursultan," the state-owned Kazinform news agency said after a parliamentary vote.
Kazakhstan's new interim president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed renaming the capital after he was sworn in following Nazarbayev's shock resignation on Tuesday.
In his first official act, Tokayev asked that Astana -- the gleaming new capital Nazarbayev erected in the country's vast steppes -- be renamed "Nursultan" -- which means "Sultan of Light" in Kazakh and other Turkic languages.
Astana, the government's showpiece project on the Ishim river in northern Kazakhstan, took over as the capital more than 20 years ago.
It replaced Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty as the capital in 1997 and was transformed from a minor provincial town into a futuristic city.
Its name meant "capital" in Kazakh and there had long been speculation it could at some point be renamed after the leader who shaped it.
It was not the first name change for the city, now home to around one million people.
Astana was previously known as Akmolinsk, Tselinograd and Akmola.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/kazakhstan-re...002105236.html