How do you solve a problem like Dariga Nazarbayeva ?

Rakhat Mukhtaruly Aliyev (Kazakh: Рахат Мұхтарұлы Әлиев; born 1962) was, until June married to married to glamorous Dariga Nazarbayeva, (pic) 44 (birth date May 7th - A stubborn Taurean) the eldest daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. They have two sons , Nurali (who has a son) and Aisoultan and a daughter Venera. His father in law has been in office for 17 years and in May changed the law to allow him to run for the presidency as many times as he likes.

Apparently her divorce was decided for his wife and the first he knew of it was when he was told. ...divorce papers were slipped under the front gate of Aliyev's Vienna home in the middle of the night.

He served as the First Vice Foreign Minister in the government of Kazakhstan until February 2007 when he was appointed to his second tour as Kazakhstan's Ambassador to Austria.

On May 27, 2007, the Prosecutor General of Republic of Kazakhstan issued an international order for his arrest.The Austrian authorities arrested him on 1 June and releasedhim on bond 2 days later. He is now seeking asylum.

The charge that led to the order was that he was involved in the kidnapping of two former officials of the Kazakh bank Nurbank ( Zholdas Temiraliyev (Kazakh: Жолдас Темірәлиев) and Abilmazhen Ghylymov (Kazakh: Әбілмәжен Ғылымов), he claims (natch) these charges are fabricated, and designed to stop him standing for president. (Wapo)

He has told the BBC he wants to bring reform to Kazakhstan.

"We should create a democratic civil society in line with European standards,"

This follows Nazarbaev's reelection for another seven-year term on December 4 in 2005.

On February 13 2006 , the bullet-riddled bodies of the leader of the opposition Naghyz Ak Zhol (True Bright Path) party Altynbek Sarsenbaev and two aides were found in the Almaty outskirts.

Zamanbek Nurkadilov, another opposition leader had been found shot dead in his Almaty residence only 3 months earlier.The official verdict was suicide

Now it is said that with his other son in law Timur Kulibayev, (also on the National Golf Team and is known in golfing circles as the "Lion King")isin charge of the State holding company Samruk (See previous Post here Nursultan Nazarbayev embraces Mother Russia ... and Putin
that the President is about to ensure Dariga is set to follow in his footsteps. She is / was an ambitious lawyer and headed her own political party Asar but is was announced last year they would be merging with the Presidents own Otan party.

A forceful lady, in January 2002, she commandeered an Air Kazakhstan jet to take her and her entourage to a winter vacation in Dubai, thus leaving about a hundred ticketed passengers stranded at the Almaty airport. Her and her (now ex- husband) own the vast media conglomerate Khabar which owns the state share of the national television station, as well as two other major television channels. It owns several radio stations a couple of newspapers, a printing company, a news agency called Kazakhstan Today and an advertising agency.

However she was last year publicly critical of the Government. After an explosion at a foreign-owned coal mine, Dariga implicitly criticised the government in an article published in r, Karavan, one of her newspapers, in October 2006. In her piece, she highlighted the poor pay and working conditions of Kazakh miners, and argued that foreign investors in Kazakhstan are allowed to exploit the workforce.

The moves this summer to remove her from her husband are widely rumoured to presage a lengthy public return to the family bosom and her grooming for succession.

Kazakhstan

Total area: 1,049,149.53 sq miles (2,717,300 sq km)
Land area: 1,030,809.78 sq miles (2,669800 sq km)
Comparative area:
- Ninth largest in the world, equivalent to the size of Western Europe.
- Five times the size of France.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev decided to move the capital of Kazakhstan out of Almaty to a tiny provincial town called Astana in the very heart of the steppe. Ten years and £5bn ($9.6bn) later, Astana is Central Asia's fastest growing city.

Kyrgiz President Askar Akaev's son Aydar married President Nazarbayev's youngest daughter Aliya in 1998.

Removing all its nuclear warheads by 1996, Kazakhstan became the first state in history to complete voluntary disarmament.

Useful reading :

TRACING THE ORIGINS OF THE GREAT CASPIAN BASIN ENERGY GAME
The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea
By Steve LeVine
A EurasiaNet book review by Justin Burke; 11/05/07