Kasım Cömert Tokayev, the President of Kazakhstan, is a prominent figure in the Turkic region. Tokayev is a significant political leader and a successful diplomat. His proximity to Russia often makes him a subject of criticism. His name was frequently heard during the recent protests as well.
In March 1999, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan through a proxy. In October of the same year,
just seven months later, he became the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan by decree of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and with the approval of the parliament.
Two years after becoming Kazakhstan's Prime Minister, some issues began to arise. In the early 2000s, tensions emerged between Tokayev and then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Tokayev indicated that he would resign in the face of disagreements.
He officially resigned from the position of Prime Minister on January 28, 2002. He then served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for a period.
He also held the position of Chairman of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. He served as the Chairman of the Senate from 2007 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2019. In 2008, he was elected Vice President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. On April 15, 2011, he became the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and held this position until 2013.
In the ongoing process, Tokayev began to be seen as the successor to the country's leadership after Nazarbayev. This was actually what he desired. He established connections to attain this position in terms of both domestic and foreign relations.
March 19, 2019, was a historic day for Kasım Cömert Tokayev. In fact, it was a turning point in his life. On that date, then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced his resignation and signed the decree ending his own term. In his address to the public on state television, he stated that he had made a very difficult decision for himself. He announced that he had transferred the presidential authority to the President of the Senate, Kasım Cömert Tokayev, in accordance with the article in the constitution, until the end of his remaining term of office. Tokayev took the oath and assumed the presidency from Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev had resigned, but despite the resignation, his powers continued until 2022. As his first act, he changed the name of the country's capital from Astana to Nursultan.
During Tokayev's tenure, he developed particularly strong relations with China and Russia. It's worth noting that Tokayev spent a significant portion of his life in Beijing, China's capital, and he was nurtured in the Soviet Union's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and embassies. The last thing he wanted was to stand against Russia and China.
Even though there were efforts to increase the importance of the Kazakh language over Russian in the country, Tokayev did not want this move to become anti-Russian. However, at the same time, Tokayev was one of the biggest supporters of transitioning from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet for the Kazakh language.
Tokayev frequently criticized "Islamic radicalism" in his speeches. He stated that the development of Islamic civilization and cultural traditions, thus the spread of "intellectual Islam," was necessary. With these statements, he was accused of trying to maintain Islam as more of a cultural theme rather than a practical aspect of life.
In this episode of Profile, we sought to answer the question "Who is Kazakhstan's President, Kasım Cömert Tokayev?"
note: Our AI-generated voiceovers aim to emulate the original speaker but may not fully capture language nuances or intricacies despite our efforts for accuracy and quality.