Dariga Nazarbayeva, the eldest daughter of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was elected speaker of the upper house of parliament on Wednesday, the No.2 position in Kazakhstan, after the previous speaker Kassym-Jomart Tokayev took over as the acting president.

Nazarbayeva, 55, is the eldest and most politically prominent of Nazarbayev's three children.

Nazarbayev announced his resignation on Tuesday in a televised speech.

According to the constitution, Tokayev will be an acting president until a new president is elected in April. The decision took effect on March 20, local time.

The announcement comes just weeks after the aging leader dismissed the country's government. No reason has yet been given.

"I have taken the decision to refuse the mandate of the presidency," Nazarbayev said in a speech broadcast on state television.

He remains president of the National Security Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan and chairman of the Nur Otan Party.

Nazarbayev was elected president of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan in December 1991 and won four presidential elections after his first term. His term would end in 2020.

Nazarbayev, 78, graduated from the Highest Technical Educational Institution at the Karaganada Metallurgic Works. He has a doctoral degree in economics and was conferred an honorary doctoral degree by Peking University in 2002.

He has served as chairman of the Ministers' Council of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, and president of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.

Smoother transition?

"(Nazarbayev) will continue to some extent to oversee things, so it is not like he has cut the cord totally - he still has his fingers in the pie," said Theodor Kirschner of Capitulum Asset Management in Berlin.

"That a 78-year-old won't be sticking around forever shouldn't be such a surprise to anyone, and this move makes the transition smoother. This doesn't really give us a headache."

Nazarbayev, who helped attract tens of billions of dollars from foreign energy companies and more than tripled Kazakh oil output, said he would continue to chair the Security Council and remain leader of the Nur Otan party which dominates parliament.

The new acting president, 65-year-old Tokayev, is a Moscow-educated career diplomat fluent in Kazakh, Russian, English, and Chinese who has previously served as Kazakhstan's foreign minister and prime minister.

While praising Tokayev as “a man who can be trusted to lead Kazakhstan”, Nazarbayev - who has three daughters - stopped short of endorsing him as his preferred heir.

"We expect Tokayev to be an interim figure," said Camilla Hagelund, an analyst at consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft. "The real question is, who will be Kazakhstan's third president."

Kazakhstan is scheduled to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections next year.

Nazarbayev's nephew Samat Abish, is the No.2 official on the National Security Committee.

The head of state security, 53-year-old Karim Masimov, is also a close Nazarbayev confidant. He has served twice as prime minister and also worked as the president's chief of staff.

But regardless of who eventually leads Kazakhstan, the transition may slow reforms, including in the key energy sector, according to GlobalData analyst Will Scargill.

"Although Nazarbayev will retain some key roles, his decision to resign will doubtless slow policy-making as political dynamics are restructured," Scargill said.

Uncertainty could also hurt investor appetite for Kazakhstan's biggest state-owned companies, which the government planned to list as part of a privatization campaign.

Balancing act

Nazarbayev steered his nation, which is five times the size of France in area, to independence from Moscow in 1991. He has since managed to maintain close ties with Russia, the West, and China, Kazakhstan's giant eastern neighbor.

Nazarbayev won 97.7 percent of the vote in the last presidential election in 2015. 

His government recently pushed through a number of popular policies - including raising public-sector salaries and forcing utilities to cut or freeze tariffs - stoking speculation that he was preparing for a re-election bid.

(With input from Reuters)