
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was headed for a landslide victory in a snap election on Sunday, according to exit polls, solidifying his grip on power less than a year after he sidelined his long-ruling predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The former diplomat, who came to power in 2019 as Nazarbayev's hand-picked successor when the Central Asian nation's only ruler since the Soviet era stepped down, broke with his ex-patron after a January uprising that Tokayev called a coup attempt.