ALMATY (Reuters) – Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev mentioned on Wednesday he had taken over as head of the highly effective Security Council from veteran former leader Nursultan Nazarbayev and promised to reply with “most toughness” to gasoline value protests.

In a televised deal with, Tokayev mentioned he was instantly assuming the management of the Security Council, a job by which Nazarbayev had continued to wield important affect after unexpectedly stepping down from the presidency in 2019.

He didn’t point out Nazarbayev by identify. The former president, 81, has not been seen or heard from in public because the begin of the protests that led Tokayev earlier on Wednesday to just accept the resignation of his authorities.

The transfer appeared to mark the definitive sidelining of Nazarbayev, a former Communist Party boss who dominated unchallenged as president for practically three a long time after Kazakhstan gained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It was unclear if this is able to fulfill the protesters, a few of whom have been heard chanting “Old man, go away!”, a conventional anti-Nazarbayev slogan.

Earlier, Tokayev had eliminated Nazarbayev’s nephew from his post of no. 2 on the State Security Committee, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov and Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Kevin Liffey)