part 1) researched ...5 yrs ago...
March 20th, 2019, the capital was renamed from Astana to its current name Nur-Sultan from long-ruling Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, a Communist Muslim who in March 2019, resigned from the presidency amid accusations of corruption, the country's government resembles a clan system. Nursultan Nazarbayev is immune from any criminal prosecution & is Chairman of the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan, & of the Security Council & ruling party Nur Otan. Nazarbayev is a member of the Constitutional Council, & the Senate of Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev successfully pushed for a parliamentary bill granting him legal immunity, as well as another to legalize money laundering, Torture remains common in places of detention. The newspaper Respublika reported in 2002 that Nazarbayev had in the mid-1990s secretly stashed away $1,000,000,000 BILLION of state oil revenue in Swiss bank accounts.