Nursultan Nazarbayev goes through surgery

According to Aidos Ukibay, the press secretary of the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev has gone through surgery by prominent cardiac surgeon Yuriy Pya.

«The operation was good… Currently, he is under medical observation. The surgery was executed in the National Research Cardiac Surgery Center under the supervision of the prominent surgeon Yuriy Pya,» Ukibay wrote on Twitter.

The ex-president is safe now, the official highlighted.

Later, Pya said that it was planned surgery and Nazarbayev’s condition is stable.

This operation was planned last year. As he has a busy schedule, we decided to arrange the surgery at a time that is convenient for him. Therefore, the surgery was arranged for today. The condition of Nursultan Abishevich is good. We are going to discharge him very soon,” the cardiac surgeon stated.

Nazarbayev was born on July 6, 1940, in the village of Chemolgan in the Almaty region. On April 24, 1990, he was elected president of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. He ruled the country, which later gained its independence, for 29 years until March 20, 2019. After he announced his decision to leave the office, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, speaker of the Senate at the time, was appointed as acting head of the country. In June of that year, Tokayev won the presidential elections.

Although Nazarbayev had quit the president’s office, he kept his position as the head of the Security Council of Kazakhstan and chairman of the Nur Otan political party (now Amanat). In January 2022, when people took to the streets all over the country, Nazarbayev stepped down from the position of the head of the Security Council in favor of President Tokayev. Also, Nazarbayev lost his title as Honorary Senator he received in May 2019.

On January 13, 2023, the two houses of the national parliament voted to revoke the law on the first president.

The first president law provided Nazarbayev with immunity from any legal prosecution for actions he made when he was in office. Moreover, the law protected him from search, arrest or inspection even after he lost presidential status. The ex-president and members of his family were also protected by security services. Now the only title Nazarbayev possesses is the ex-president title.