ALMATY—Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev unexpectedly resigned on Mach 19 after three decades in power, in what appeared to be the first step in a choreographed political transition that will see him retain considerable sway.
Known as “Papa” to many Kazakhs, the 78-year-old former steelworker and Communist party apparatchik have ruled the vast oil and gas-rich Central Asian nation since 1989, when it was still part of the Soviet Union.
