From July 1981, Qasymov was the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kazakh SSR.

As a result, after the journalist's remark “And how, the next morning you don’t have a headache after drinking?”, Qasymov responded saying “could not stand it” and with the words “I see you need flowers and applause!” He threw a vase that was on the table with carnations.

Drinking wine, he spoke in detail about his program and voiced his pre-election slogan “I will put things in order in the country with my hard hand!” In order to demonstrate it, Qasymov crushed the wine glass that was on his hand and showed the blood that appeared on his fingers.

In 2011, Qasymov again ran for president in the 2011 Kazakh presidential election, according to the CEC, he took second place, although he gained only 1.94% of the popular vote.

[3] According to a number of media reports, there was no official decree by the President of Kazakhstan on awarding the general rank to Qasymov.