Kazakhstan amends constitution to rename capital city and limit presidential mandate to one seven-year term

Kazakhstan’s president has signed a law limiting presidential terms and reverting to the old name of the Central Asian country’s capital in the latest step of breaking with the legacy of his predecessor. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a bill [...] extending presidential mandates to a seven-year term, from the current five, and barring any president from running for a second term in office. The Kazakh Parliament unanimously supported the amendments in two readings on Friday. The bill also reinstated the capital’s name to Astana. The name was changed to Nur-Sultan in March 2019, in honour of outgoing President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The change is effective immediately, according to a decree on the presidential website. [...] Earlier this month, Tokayev called for an early presidential election and announced the move to bring back the old name of the country’s capital. Tokayev has previously said he would run in the election. It was not immediately clear whether the new amendments would allow him to, but similar constitutional changes in Russia and Belarus allowed incumbent leaders to run again under the amended constitution.
Read the full article here: Al Jazeera