Serikbolsyn Abdildin


Serikbolsyn Abdildauly Abdildin was a Kazakh economist, politician, First Secretary of the Communist Party from 1996 to 2010, member of the Mazhilis from 1999 to 2004 and a candidate in the 1999 presidential election.

Life

Serikbolsyn Äbdildin was born in 1937 in the village of Kysylkesek in eastern Kazakhstan. He studied at the Veterinary Institute in Alma-Ata, where he graduated in 1960.
After graduating, he initially worked for three years in a farm in the Semipalatinsk Oblast. From 1963 he attended the graduate school at the Veterinary Institute in Alma-Ata and between 1966 and 1967 he was employed there as a research assistant. He then worked in various positions at the State Planning Commission of the Kazakh SSR. In 1982 he was appointed the first deputy minister of agriculture of the Kazakh SSR and in December 1985 he became the first deputy chairman of the state agricultural committee of the Kazakh SSR. He held this position until July 1987 before becoming a permanent representative of the Kazakh Soviet Republic at the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. From April 1990 he was deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR and from October 16, 1991 then was Chairman of the Supreme Council of Kazakhstan until its abolition on January 28, 1993. Since 1991 he has been Secretary General of the Kazakhstan Communist Party.
After Kazakhstan gained independence, the associated loss of power of the Communist Party and the takeover by Nursultan Nazarbayev, Äbdildin went into opposition. He was a presidential candidate in the 1999 election. He won second place with around twelve percent of the vote. After the 1999 legislative election, he was one of three Communist Party MPs in the Mazhilis and a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security.
During his final years, Abdildin criticized Nazarbayev, claiming that any political reforms weren't possible under his regime. He suggested that a return to the 1993 Kazakh Constitution would be a viable option.
Äbdildin passed away around the midnight during the New Year's Eve on 31 December 2019 in Almaty, at the age of 82.