INTERVIEW-Kazakh leader hints at succession plan

By Michael Stott and Maria Golovnina

ASTANA, March 28 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev made a rare reference to the succession on Friday, saying the time would come when he had to make way for a younger generation.

"I would like to clarify this nonsense that the first president, that is me, can stay in power for an unlimited number of terms," said Nazarbayev, 67, who has ruled Kazakhstan since it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

"That does not mean I will be here forever," he told Reuters in an interview. Nazarbayev last won election in 2005, securing 91 percent of the vote in a poll criticised by Western observers. Parliament last year voted to allow him to stay in office for an unlimited number of terms.

Speaking at his three-year-old palace in the new capital Astana, Nazarbayev noted that Kazakhstan's next presidential election would be held in 2012, then added:

"But I have been in this job for so many years and after all I might hand it over to the next generation, so to say, when I see that we need new, fresh people...this is an electoral process".

TABOO SUBJECT

The comment was unusual because discussion of the presidential succession is a taboo topic in Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev himself never normally refers to it.

The president, a former steelworker who became Communist leader of then-Soviet Kazakhstan in 1989, declined to say whom he considered a possible successor.

"We have a lot of them here ... I think I should not give any names now to avoid upsetting anyone," he said.

Diplomats describe Nazarbayev as a leader who carefully balances the interests of different groups among Kazakhstan's elite, shuffling key posts frequently to avoid any threats or rivalry.

Several of the president's family members hold key positions of influence. His eldest daughter Dariga has in the past been tipped as a possible successor, as has his son-in-law Timur Kulibayev, a powerful businessman.

The president dismissed criticism of Kazakhstan's fledgling democracy, saying his country had never had the opportunity to build any kind of democratic tradition under two centuries of Russian tsarism and then decades of Soviet rule.

"I would like to create a democracy like in America but where can I find enough Americans for that in Kazakhstan?" he joked. "Our general goal is to build a free civic society and a market social economy. We are moving towards it step by step."

Kazakhstan lies in a region full of authoritarian governments. Its neighbour Uzbekistan drew international condemnation after government troops opened fire on demonstrators in the town of Andizhan in May 2005, killing hundreds of people.

"No country around Kazakhstan can be called a real democracy," Nazarbayev said. "I think we have made the best progress in this short period of time in this respect."

ECONOMY FIRST

He added: "We have created an attractive, open and free market economy in our country. The main goal of our work has been based on the following principle: the economy first, and only then politics."

Giving clues about his own vision of how democracy should develop in Kazakhstan, a country full of steppe and desert and still populated partly by nomads, Nazarbayev said it would only have a "responsible electorate" when half the population were involved in small and medium-sized businesses.

He stressed the importance of maintaining and respecting the balance between Kazakhstan's diverse ethnic and religious communities.

About a quarter of the population are native Russians and the new capital Astana boasts a Catholic church, a synagogue and a Buddhist temple alongside its mosque for the majority Muslim worshippers.

Nazarbayev also appeared to suggest that with its diverse ethnic groups, Kazakhstan might not be ready for full-scale Western democracy.

"How many attempts have been made to instill U.S.-type democracy in African countries? And look at what it has led to...tribal warfare," he remarked.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)