APresident · 1990 – 2019Independent states
Nursultan Nazarbayev
Kazakhstan's first president (b. 1940), who led the country from 1990 to 2019 and moved the capital to Astana.
Nursultan Nazarbayev began as a steelworker, became chairman of the Kazakh SSR Council of Ministers in 1984 and Communist Party First Secretary in 1989. He was elected president in 1990, and Kazakhstan declared independence on 16 December 1991.
Under him the country gave up its Soviet nuclear arsenal and in 1997 moved the capital from Almaty to Akmola (Astana). He was one of the initiators of the Turkic Council. He resigned in March 2019.
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Updated: October 4, 2026