Kazakh president becomes party chair after sidelining Nazarbayev

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has been voted chairman of the governing party, replacing his mentor and former head of state Nursultan Nazarbayev, after a bloody crisis exposed a struggle at the top of the leadership.

“By the decision of the extraordinary XXI Party Congress, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart (Tokayev), was unanimously elected Chairman of the Nur Otan Party,” his office said on Twitter on Friday.

The move came after unprecedented unrest that left 225 people dead earlier in January.

Tokayev this month questioned 81-year-old Nazarbayev’s legacy, in particular widening inequality between the elite and the poor in Central Asia’s richest country.

Nazarbayev ruled Kazakhstan for close to 30 years, brooking no opposition, before hand-picking Tokayev, 68, a career diplomat and then-loyalist, to replace him as president in 2019.

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