Nazarbayev is not planning to leave the post

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev is not planning to leave his post yet, KazTAG reports citing Nazarbayev's biographer Jonathan Aitken. “Nazarbayev is not planning to leave his post right now. We will stay in power. He is questionning himself about who to pass the power to. But for the moment he is not sharing his thoughts with anyone,” Aitken said in an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda radio on November 28. According to him, the issue of successor “is the most complicated issues of Kazakhstan politics right now”. “There is a saying in Great Britain that seedlings wither in the shade of a big tree. But there are smart and talented people in Kazakhstan. Some of them are very close to the President and some are among the top managers of the countiry,” the biographer said. Aitken supposes that Nazarbayev “has time and he can still manage”. “He is thinking of the successor because he wants to transfer a stable country and transfer it to a stable and strong management,” British writer said. He also supposed that the situation might following the Russian scenario: “with successor and heritage”. “A parliamentary option is possible. But I know that he wants the power succession to be successful. And he is not in a hurry to do it,” Aitken said. Aitken is a former British politician. He used to be a member of British parliament, then worked as a Minister of Defense Procurement. He is well-known as the author of biographies of historical persons. One of his books devoted to former U.S. president Richard Nickson received a special international award. Aitken got interested in Kazakhstan in 2006. The book called Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan: From Communism to Capitalism was published in 2009.