Nursultan Nazarbayev: Kazakhstan's Longtime Ruler

The World
Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has ruled the country since before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the decades since, Nazarbayev has walked a fine line between leader and oligarch. Despite having amassed a fortune from several state run companies, Kazakhs still support him. In fact, officials are busy erecting several Soviet-style statutes of Nazarbayev to celebrate Kazakhstan's two decades of independence from Russia. Reporter Steve LeVine, a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, says Nazarbayev was a keen student of Soviet-era politics.
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