The President of Kazakhstan has signed a law reverting to the old name of the Central Asian country’s capital _ Astana in the latest step of throwing away the legacy of his predecessor.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a bill on Sept 17, extending presidential mandates for seven-years, from five, barring any president from running for a second term in office.
The Kazakh Parliament unanimously supported the amendments in two readings on Friday. The bill also reinstated the capital’s name to Astana. The name was changed to Nur-Sultan in March 2019, in honour of outgoing President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The change is effective immediately, according to a decree on the presidential website.
Astana became the capital of Kazakhstan in 1997 when Nazarbayev, who led the country for three decades under the Soviet Union and after it gained independence in 1991, moved it there from Almaty.
