SEPT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev knows the lynchpin for delivering an ordered succession handover is the Central Election Commission (CEC).

With a trusted loyalist running the CEC — which oversees elections, decides on the eligibility of candidates and approves senators and MPs — Nazarbayev’s chances of delivering a smooth succession are improved.

Kazakhstan’s political class is riven through with different power groups vying for influence. There are rivals to Nazarbayev who are looking for weaknesses to exploit.

Nazarbayev’s appointment of Berik Imashev to head the CEC means that these opponents won’t find any weaknesses there.

Arguably it was the most important appointment in a wider reshuffle earlier his month, although the move of Karim Massimov from PM to head the security services, Dariga Nazarbayeva’s shift into the Senate and Imangali Tasmagambetov’s drift from the defence ministry into the deputy PM’s seat, grabbed the headlines.

Imashev is the definition of an arch-Nazarbayev loyalist. From the late 1990s, the 56-year-old has spent his career serving Nazarbayev, first as one of his advisers and then as deputy speaker of the Senate, deputy chairman of the State Security Council and most recently, from 2012, as justice minister.

It will now be Imashev’s job to ensure that Kazakh elections produce the right results with the right margins of victory that Nazarbayev requires.

And Imashev is well placed to do this. After all, he shares the same interests as Nazarbayev.

Known as a tough, uncompromising operator, Imashev is also married into the First Family. In 2003, his daughter, Aida, married Dariga Nazarbayev’s son Nurali. This makes both Imashev and Dariga, a favourite to succeed her father as president, grandparents to Aida and Nurali’s children. Imashev is, in effect, an extension of the Nazarbayev family.

Imashev’s appointment at the CEC also marks its subjugation as a political tool, although pretensions of independence had always been thin.