Kazakhstan’s President has replaced the current energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik with a regional governor.
The move comes after the new parliament in the country voted 96-4 with seven abstentions to confirm Prime Minister Karim Massivmov’s government on Friday.
It was later announced that Shkolnik has been removed from his post and replaced by 47-year-old Kanat Bozumbayev who was head of the Pavlodar region of northern Kazakhstan close to the border with Russia.
The President’s Nur Otan party retained its overwhelming majority in parliament in the snap elections which were called after he warned that central Asia’s largest oil producer faced a “real crisis” following the slump in crude prices to a 13-year low.
