Industrial decline worries Kazakhstanis as they vote
President Nazarbayev must turn nation’s industrial fortunes around or find something new for redundant workers to do.
The man who has ruled Kazakhstan for the last quarter of a century is likely to be re-elected in Sunday’s polls. Yet despite being certain that Nursultan Nazarbayev will be re-elected president, many Kazakhstanis want him to address the country’s continued industrial decline.
If Kazakhstanis have a future, Nazarbayev has an immense task ahead: turn their industrial fortunes around or find something new for redundant workers to do.
Al Jazeera’s Robin Forestier-Walker reports from Temirtau, in whose steel plants Nazarbayev cut his teeth but which, like so many other industrial centres in the country, is in terminal decline with employers such as ArcellorMittal cutting jobs and output.