A Kazakh Gorbachev? Why some expect change from new leader.

The result in Kazakhstan’s presidential election last weekend may have been thoroughly predictable. It was, after all, a whopping 81.3% victory for President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, anointed successor to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the ruler since Soviet times of a Central Asian republic widely viewed as a typical post-Soviet autocracy.

But some analysts say that what’s happening in Kazakhstan is not simply another case of a regime transitioning rulers while maintaining the same old order.

Rather, they suggest that an example of an old-fashioned leader turned champion of necessary change – the classic case is – could be rising on the troubled steppes of Kazakhstan. Mr. Tokayev’s election, though  in the West as lacking competition, could herald sweeping changes,