MANMOHAN SINGH WILL NOT SEEK ANOTHER TERM AS INDIA'S PRIME MINISTER

AFTER TEN YEARS, 

INDIA WILL HAVE A 

NEW PRIME MINISTER 

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER 

2004-2014 (planned) 

MANMOHAN SINGH 

(second from left)  

ON THE WORLD STAGE 

at the Expanded G-8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in July 2006, with then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on his right, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev on his left, and then Chinese President Hu Jintao to Nazarbayev's left 

A selection of postmortems and appraisals 

here and here and here 

For a time it was "Singh Is King," and then... 

Singh the Placeholder, the loyal former Finance Minister 

Now to make way for Rahul Gandhi -- 

Except the polls do not make this look an auspicious time for the Congress Party Rahul Gandhi is meant to inherit the leadership of  

WHY THE AUGUST COUP? THE UNION TREATY WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN SIGNED TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO TODAY

DAY THREE OF 

THE 1991 AUGUST COUP 

August 20, 1991 

NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV 
President of Kazakhstan 
Photographed in 1997 
In office in 1991, and still in office today 

From RUSSIA REDUX, Chapter Eight: 

Gorbachev has described the coup plotters "as 'egotistical careerists' who decided to act against him when it became clear that there would be no place for them in the new order."  The new order was to be brought into being by the signing of the Union Treaty on August 20, 1991; it "would have reshaped the Soviet Union as a loose confederation of sovereign states and resulted in a major government shake-up."  So it was not just some abstract concerns about intergovernmental structures which drove the conspirators, according to their patron, but the detailed knowledge about kto kogo -- who was going to do what to whom. 

For Gorbachev was convinced, afterwards, that his conversations with the top republican leaders at Novo-Ogarëvo were bugged, and what they contained was dynamite.  Gorbachev has been releasing this dynamite in pieces.  In an early version he revealed that: 

Yeltsin, Nazarbayev, and I already had an understanding that once the Union Treaty had been signed, and without waiting for the new constitution, we would move toward new organs of power and new elections.  We were thinking in terms of agreeing this [sic] with other republic leaders too.  Thus, new people would have come to the fore. 

Yeltsin of Russia, Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, and Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, had reached an understanding. 

And so some of the "old people," people Gorbachev had appointed,  organized the coup -- the GKChPists, including Vladimir Kryuchkov (the KGB) and Dmitry Yazov (Ministry of Defense) and Boris Pugo (Ministry of the Interior).  

But they did not seize Boris Yeltsin. 

ONE LEG AT A TIME: KOIZUMI II, NAZARBAYEV II, & PUTIN & BUSH TOO MANY TIMES TO COUNT

GET READY

SET

FIND YOUR MARK

JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI

KAZAKHSTAN PRESIDENT NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN &

AMERICAN PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH (L-R)

find their marks for the Expanded Family Photograph

at the St. Petersburg, Russia, G-8 Summit (July 2006)

Only Nazarbayev is still in the same office, although Putin is running to reclaim his old post in fifty-five days' time (March 4, 2012). Another Koizumi is here (yesterday's post); another Nazarbayev here. For a sampling of the many Putin and Bush posts, see here and here (for more, please see the labels below). For one of the two of them, "Alone Together," see here.

NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV b. July 6, 1940

NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV 

b. July 6, 1940 

PRESIDENT NAZARBAYEV 

OF 

KAZAKHSTAN 

Nursultan Nazarbayev turned seventy-one yesterday, July 6.   A book of fairy tales (or, "illustrated fables") was published to mark the occasion.  Entitled "Leader of the Nation Nursultan," it "heralds" the president's "achievements on the international diplomatic scene," according to the AP. 

The former Comrade Nazarbayev (he has held top executive positions in Kazakhstan since the Soviet mid-80s), last year was elevated to become "ELBASY" ("leader of the nation"). 

The photograph above was taken in 1997, when Nazarbayev had been (merely) president already for a half dozen years.  In that year a new capital, Astana, was established for the oil-rich former Soviet republic, on -- right -- July 6.