For three a long time, Nursultan Nazarbayev appeared to be in all places in Kazakhstan, a rustic he dominated with an autocratic fist. The capital’s airport was named after him, as was the town’s greatest college, a cluster of elite excessive faculties all through the nation, well-endowed foundations and huge boulevards.
Nazarbayev designed a futuristic white metal tower within the heart of the town, with a gold sphere on high. Inside, guests can place their palms in a large gold reduction of Nazarbayev’s personal hand, his fingers pointing on the plate-glass home windows towards his presidential palace within the distance. He stepped down as president in 2019 after 28 years, however retained energy and affect because the official “leader of the nation”. His rubber-stamp parliament renamed the capital in his honor.
It was an open secret that he was the one who was nonetheless calling the pictures.
Now the person who was in all places and who managed every little thing disappeared this month after violent protests that unfold like wildfire and sparked the nation’s largest political upheaval because the collapse of the Soviet Union. marked.
Political energy now rests with Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who stripped his longtime boss and mentor of his title and the final remaining rungs of energy. Aside from making a quick video assertion, the previous chief has backed down, the velocity of his fall from energy virtually as shocking because the size of his reign.
In the times following the protests, Kazakhstan was closed to many outsiders. A go to to Nur-Sultan quickly after the reopening revealed that life within the bureaucratic metropolis, populated largely by civil servants, had returned to regular. Over a current weekend, buyers, dealing with the dangers of the coronavirus, flocked to the Khan Shateer Mall, designed by British architect Norman Foster within the form of a giant tent, with guests trying to find post-holiday gross sales.
Visitors maintain their palms in a large gold reduction of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s personal hand inside a metal tower on January 17, 2022 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. (Sergei Ponomarev / The New York Times)
The peace was in stark distinction to the nation’s largest metropolis, Almaty, the place violence and looting and brutal police crackdown have surprised residents, a few of whom are nonetheless trying to find lacking family members. During the unrest, Almaty’s monumental metropolis corridor was ransacked and burned for 3 days, leaving a darkish, black shell.
Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic with a inhabitants of 19 million, faces an unsure future. Nazarbayev had maintained a fragile independence from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, however Tokayev was pressured this month to name for Russian-led army assist to assist cease the violence, elevating questions on whether or not he The Russians look to the chief to assist guarantee their political existence. , As Putin turns in opposition to the West in a standoff over Ukraine, the Russian president has made clear his intention to take care of affect over neighboring nations.
Internally, Tokayev has promised an overhaul to handle the nation’s ballooning inequality – the trigger that sparked protests within the first place.
“We are definitely looking forward to better days, when products are available and essentials like groceries weren’t so expensive,” stated Laysan Zoripova, 50, who visited her daughter in Nur-Sultan.
“But,” she stated, “all this violence was not necessary.”
With Nazarbayev’s legacy so widespread, the query is whether or not something will actually change in a rustic wealthy in sources however the place autocratic rule has allowed Nazarbayev’s household and pals to amass nice wealth and preserve it concentrated within the palms of some. was given.
“The formal and informal construction of the regime remains the same,” stated Dimash Alzanov, one of many founding members of Wake Up, Kazakhstan, an opposition motion whose activists are frequently harassed and detained. “The relationship between the elites—the way they form the patron-client relationship—stays the same.”
Nazarbayev grew up in a rural city close to the previous capital, Almaty. He was a steelworker earlier than becoming a member of the Communist Party, rising by means of the ranks of regional get together secretary. In 1984, he grew to become the Prime Minister of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan.
Nazarbayev grew to become Kazakhstan’s first president in 1990, and the following 12 months, weeks earlier than the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan declared its independence. It was the one newly impartial former Soviet state the place its nominal folks—Kazakhs—weren’t an ethnic majority. About 40% of the inhabitants was ethnic Russian, a quantity that has since dropped to 19%.
Steel tower designed by the previous President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on January 17, 2022 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. (Sergei Ponomarev / The New York Times)
At the time, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was talking overtly about his need to develop his nation’s borders to incorporate Abkhazia, a area of Georgia that Russia ultimately invaded in 2008; and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. He additionally distinguished the Donbass, the jap a part of Ukraine, the place Russian-backed separatists have been combating because the merger.
Northern Kazakhstan was the fourth area in Yeltsin’s imaginative and prescient, however the Russian military by no means appeared uninvited, and right this moment it’s the solely area out of 4 that isn’t contesting.
In half, that is as a result of even his harshest critics admit that Nazarbayev dealt with thorny relations with Moscow properly. When he moved the capital from Almaty to a windy, grassy plain within the north (the brand new capital was previously known as Astana), it was not a pure self-importance challenge; He was successfully elevating the flag.
He favored a “multivector” overseas coverage, hanging a stability between his highly effective neighbors Russia and China, additionally attracting US funding, notably within the oil-rich West. His mantra for growth was “economics first, politics later”.
But in 28 years, Nazarbayev’s rule started to resemble Kalpatkashahi. His household loved immense wealth, with affect within the banking and extraction industries and actual property in Switzerland, London and New York.
A current report by suppose tank Chatham House lists 34 properties bought by members of the nation’s ruling elite from 1998 to 2020 at a complete price of about $733 million. According to John Heathershaw, one of many report’s authors, many of the purchases had been made by members of the Nazarbayev household or these near them.
According to Forbes, Nazarbayev’s center daughter, Dinara, and her husband, Timur Kulibayev, had been price $3 billion earlier than the current unrest in Kazakhstan, they usually personal the nation’s largest financial institution. His eldest daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, is an novice opera singer and politician, and their son has actual property in London price about $200 million. His properties are stated to incorporate the house of 221B Baker St, which is the handle of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
Nazarbayev’s youngest daughter, Aaliyah, had a monopoly on the recycling trade by means of a personal firm known as operator ROP, which has taken in about $1.6 billion since 2016, in response to remarks by Kazakh minister Serikli Brekashev at a authorities assembly this month.
Nepotism and corruption plagued working class residents, who had been bored with government-affiliated businessmen hoarding cash for themselves.
While posing together with her teenage daughter for an image with the Rashtrapati Bhavan within the background, 48-year-old Gulia Chumkent stated Nazarbayev had taken benefit of her place.
“Of course it was not right that he enriched himself,” she stated. “But it was not in our power to do anything about it.”
Tokayev, in his speech to parliament on January 11, for the primary time acknowledged the huge wealth amassed by his predecessor’s household.
“Thanks to the first president, Elbasi,” he stated, utilizing the Kazakh phrase for the nation’s chief, “a group of very profitable companies emerged in the country, as well as a group of people whose wealth is valued even by international standards. Is .”
His criticism was hanging in a rustic the place condemning the federal government can generally result in arrest. A 2010 regulation makes it not possible to sue Nazarbayev or his relations, and it retains all banking paperwork belonging to him and his household secret.
Tokayev additionally demanded that native governments cancel contracts with operator ROP, which many took as a sign to start the method of exposing Nazarbayev’s maintain on profit-making facilities.
Nazarbayev’s nephew, Samat Abish, was dismissed as a deputy of the highly effective safety company. The Sovereign Wealth Fund stated two of Nazarbayev’s in-laws had left high positions in nationwide power firms. And son-in-law Kulibayev resigned as head of Kazakhstan’s main enterprise foyer, although he retained positions on the board of an influential power conglomerate and Russia’s Gazprom.
On Tuesday, Tokayev fired the pinnacle of the Central Election Commission, whose daughter is married to a son from Nazarbayeva.
Many Kazakhs are ready to see how Tokayev’s strategy will differ from his predecessor.
Tokayev’s adviser Erzhan Kazkhan stated his nation was dedicated to democratic reforms. Still, when requested whether or not the post-Nazarbayev interval would usher in a brand new period of real political competitors, he shrugged it off.
“You can’t build a Jeffersonian democracy overnight,” he stated.
Even although Tokayev introduced in his inside circle, Nazarbayev’s removing from efficient management excited folks, stated Zhanbolat Mamai, an opposition politician. He cited what he stated was a big distinction between the 2 males.
“For 30 years, people were afraid of Mr. Nazarbayev,” stated Mamai. “No one is afraid of Mr. Tokayev.”
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
