Longtime leader out as head of Kazakhstan’s ruling party

MOSCOW (AP) — Kazakhstan’s ruling party has chosen the country’s president as its new leader in a move that further reduces the influence of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who dominated the country’s politics for decades. The election Friday of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to lead the Nur-Otan party comes in the wake of violent demonstrations in January in which more than 220 people died and government buildings were set on fire. Nazarbayev, who had led Kazakhstan since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, resigned as president in 2019 but retained enormous influence as head of both Nur-Otan and the country’s national security council. Tokayev replaced him as security council head during the unrest.