Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said on Thursday that the 70-year old Nazarbayev, leader for more than two decades, had instructed him to announce plans to stand for a new term in an election set for 2012.
"I believe he has no plans to step down, at least until 2020," said Yertysbayev, a political adviser to the president. "In the 2012 elections, he sees no rivals to himself and no internal threats to the system."
Presidential terms in Kazakhstan were extended to seven years before Nazarbayev was last elected in 2005.
Nazarbayev has overseen more than $150 billion in foreign investment, mainly in the country's lucrative oil, gas and metals reserves.
He has never publicly named his chosen successor, and an intensifying behind-the-scenes struggle among Kazakhstan's political elite is often cited as the single biggest investment risk in the nation of 16 million people.
Yertysbayev said: "During my conversation with the president, I said: 'Why don't you announce your participation in the 2012 elections to the entire nation, so that everyone knows and the elite can calm down?'
"He replied: 'You do it. You may tell everyone.'"
Nazarbayev was declared "Leader of the Nation" on June 15, when parliament passed a law granting him the right to shape policy after retirement and immunity from prosecution.
This led some analysts to speculate that the president, who can run for an unlimited number of terms, might be clearing the way to groom a pliant successor.
Yertysbayev rejected this theory.
"All talk about his departure, about successors, about a possible referendum on powers for life -- all this is nonsense," he said.
"He (Nazarbayev) said that everything will be as written in the constitution and that Kazakhstan is a democratic state."
(Writing by Robin Paxton and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Noah Barkin)
Copyright © 2010 Reuters
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