Kazakh leader's son-in-law calls for monarchy

ALMATY, Sep 1 (Reuters) The powerful son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev called today for the setting up of a monarchy in the ex-Soviet Central Asian state.

Nazarbayev, accused by rivals of placing family members in government jobs and industry, has ruled his vast oil-producing republic since 1989. Before becoming president after the Soviet collapse in 1991, he was head of the Kazakh Communist Party.

''It's logical that a monarch can really guarantee stability for a long period of history, a luxury that presidents do not have,'' Rakhat Aliyev, who is married to Nazarbayev's eldest daughter Dariga, wrote in Karavan newspaper.

''This is the very condition without which it is impossible to develop a real, not a showcase, democracy,'' wrote Aliyev, Kazakhstan's first deputy foreign minister.

He said he backed a British-style constitutional monarchy.

Nazarbayev, who has three daughters, won a new seven-year term in December in a presidential election derided as flawed by foreign monitors. He must step down after his current term, according to the constitution.

Nazarbyaev appears in good health and has no clear successor. Western countries have accused him of quashing dissent and limiting freedom of speech.

Aliyev, whose wife is also a prominent politician with a seat in parliament, said a constitutional monarchy would help Kazakhstan become more democratic.

''We are certainly talking about a constitutional monarchy, a monarchy that is liberal, and, however paradoxical it might sound, democratic, with fully developed and independent institutions of power...,'' he wrote.

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