Nazarbayev weighs new run to extend longest ex-Soviet tenure

ASTANA. KAZINFORM Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he may extend the longest reign of any former Soviet leader by running for a fifth term in 2016.
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"There definitely will be a transition of power -- there's nothing frozen, it will be changed," Nazarbayev, 73, said in an interview to Bloomberg last week in the presidential palace in the Kazakh capital, Astana. "I was elected until December 2016. The time will come when we'll talk about it." Nazarbayev has harnessed Kazakhstan's oil and mineral wealth to forge the second-largest economy among former Soviet republics during more than two decades of unchallenged rule. The interview preceded the Kazakh central bank's announcement yesterday that it would devalue the tenge by the most since 2009 to help boost competitiveness. Nazarbayev won his most recent five-year term in 2011 with 95.5 percent backing in the central Asian nation of 17 million people. The lack of a clear succession plan in a country whose leader looms so large has constrained Kazakhstan's debt ratings for Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings by exacerbating political risks. Kairat Kelimbetov, the Kazakh central bank chairman, told reporters in Almaty yesterday that he learned of the decision to devalue the currency the previous night. The tenge will be allowed to trade at 185 per dollar, with a range of 3 tenge on either side, according to the regulator, Bloomberg reports. For full version go to

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