Most Powerful

• #1 Nursultan Nazarbayev
  Kazakhstan Party State ControlPolitical Cold War and Globalization State Power Power: 100
  Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev (born 1940) is a Kazakh politician who served as the first president of Kazakhstan from 1990 to 2019, first as head of the Kazakh Soviet republic and then as leader of the independent state after 1991. He presided over the creation of new national institutions, the consolidation of presidential authority, and the rapid development of Kazakhstan’s energy and mineral sectors. Under Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan pursued a foreign policy often described as multi-vector, balancing relationships with Russia, China, and Western states while seeking investment and export routes for oil, gas, and metals.Nazarbayev’s long tenure also generated sustained criticism over authoritarian governance, limits on political opposition, and allegations of corruption and nepotism within elite networks. Political stability and economic growth were often presented as the regime’s core achievements, but critics argued that stability depended on constrained competition, security-state leverage, and the distribution of resource rents through patronage. After stepping down from the presidency in 2019, Nazarbayev retained significant institutional influence for a period through special roles and titles, before subsequent political shifts reduced that influence. His career offers a contemporary case of party-state control in a resource-rich post-Soviet context where legitimacy is built through state-building narratives, managed elections, and rent distribution.