Kazakh president replaces ex-leader’s daughter with aide

Kazakhstan’s president appointed a top aide to the senate yesterday after dismissing his powerful predecessor’s daughter in a shock move that sparked speculation of a power struggle.

An order published on President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s website said the former deputy head of his administration, Maulen Ashimbayev, would become a senator following the dismissal of Dariga Nazarbayeva on Saturday.

Ashimbayev was yesterday unanimously elected as speaker of the upper house — the position Nazarbayeva held before her dismissal and which had positioned her second in line to the presidency.

Nazarbayeva, 56, is the daughter of Kazakhstan’s first post-independence leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, who retains significant formal powers despite retiring last year after three decades at the helm.

Nazarbayev, 79, has not spoken publicly about his daughter’s dismissal.

Yet he recently called on the country to back Tokayev, 66, as the oil-producing Central Asian country battles the dual shock of rock-bottom energy prices and the coronavirus pandemic.

Ashimbayev’s unanimous election as senate speaker was confirmed by Tokayev’s press secretary in a Facebook post.

Like most parliaments in Central Asia, Kazakhstan’s bicameral legislature is widely viewed as a rubber stamp with no independence from the executive.

Many observers had viewed Tokayev, a former foreign minister, as a loyal seat-warmer who might make way for a member of the Nazarbayev family at a later date.

Ashimbayev was in charge of Tokayev’s presidential campaign, which saw him easily defeat a cluster of candidates in a vote decried by international monitors in June.

Ashimbayev was replaced as deputy head of Tokayev’s administration by information minister Dauren Abayev. –