ASTANA – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Monday unexpectedly rejected a plan to hold a referendum on prolonging his rule until 2020, saying that he would instead call early presidential polls. The announcement stunned Kazakhstan after parliament earlier this month agreed the controversial referendum should go ahead but also came after rare criticism of the ex-Soviet state by its Western ally the US.
The referendum was backed by the ruling Nur-Otan party which sees Nazarbayev as a Kazakh equivalent of historic figures like Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk but slammed by rights groups as creating an authoritarian state. “As the head of state, I have to assume the whole weight of a historic responsibility,” Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan for its entire history as an independent state, said in an address to the nation.
“I cannot set the wrong precedent for future politicians. I have taken the decision not to hold the referendum.” He said that instead he would submit a proposal to parliament to hold early presidential elections “even though this will reduce my current mandate by almost two years.”
