The presidential decree to change the name of Kazakhstan's capital city back to Astana from Nur-Sultan came into force on September 19 after its text was officially published in state media.
President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev signed the decree two days earlier in another move to distance himself from his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbaev.
Toqaev first changed the name of the capital from Astana to Nur-Sultan in 2019, one day after Nazarbaev, who had run the tightly controlled former Soviet republic with an iron fist for almost three decades, announced he was resigning and that Toqaev was his handpicked successor.
Though he officially stepped down as president, Nazarbaev retained sweeping powers as the head of the country's powerful Security Council. He also enjoyed substantial powers by holding the title of "elbasy" or leader of the nation.
Even after Nazarbaev's stepping down, many Kazakhs remained bitter about the oppression felt during his reign.
Those feelings came to a head in January when unprecedented antigovernment nationwide protests started over a fuel price hike, and then exploded into countrywide deadly unrest over perceived corruption under the Nazarbaev regime and the cronyism that allowed his family and close friends to enrich themselves while ordinary citizens failed to enjoy any of the oil-rich Central Asian nation's wealth.
Toqaev subsequently stripped Nazarbaev of his Security Council role, taking it over himself. Since then, several of Nazarbaev's relatives and allies have been pushed out of their positions or resigned. Some have been arrested on corruption charges.
In June this year, a Toqaev-initiated referendum removed Nazarbaev's name from the constitution and annulled his status as elbasy.
Kazakh critics say Toqaev's initiatives were mainly cosmetic and did not change the nature of the autocratic system in a country that has been plagued for years by rampant corruption and nepotism.
