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Latest information from Kazakhstan, residence to just about 20 million folks and a middle of geopolitical affect between Russia and China, is each intriguing and more and more tragic, as its political panorama shifts quickly and unexpectedly.
The intrigue comes from the truth that its former president and long-term de facto ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev has transferred his management of the occasion of energy to the present president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. For a lot of, this indicators the top of three many years of Nazarbayev’s rule within the first main handover of authority because the fall of the Soviet Union.
The tragedy, nevertheless, is a reminder of why the transfer is so surprising. The poet Aron Atabek died earlier this week, having simply been launched from jail in Kazakhstan. His 15-year-long incarceration, usually beneath situations broadly decried as abusive, was a type of political persecution, human rights activists and observers have maintained, even when the Kazakh authorities have at all times denied this. The writers’ group, PEN Worldwide, had lengthy known as for his launch.
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Going down simply as Kazakhstan is celebrating 30 years of post-Soviet independence, collectively these two occasions level to key questions of its previous and future. For one factor, Nazarbayev’s relinquishing of the occasion management is a part of a long-drawn-out transition that started within the spring of 2019. On the time, he all of a sudden introduced that he was stepping down as president and, in a political system with extremely predictable election outcomes, in essence appointed Tokayev as his successor.
The importance of that second went properly past the 2 males’s particular person careers. Nazarbayev had been in very agency management of Kazakhstan since 1989, initially as first secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Social gathering when it was a Soviet republic after which, after the top of the Soviet Union in 1991, as president of an unbiased nation. Inevitably, the very sluggish and guarded retreat from the de facto autocratic energy that he initiated in 2019 was additionally the primary time the nation acquired a president who had not been its chief throughout the Soviet interval. However the truth that Tokayev additionally had a Soviet element in his early profession as a diplomat, the gradual transition of energy can be one other step in leaving the Soviet legacy behind.
Nazarbayev, it’s true, nonetheless retains a lot energy. He’s holding on to his function as head of a nationwide safety council and his official title as “chief of the nation.” His household stays extraordinarily rich, well-connected, and influential. However one suspicion can most likely be laid to relaxation now: When Tokayev acceded to the presidency in 2019, some observers believed he was merely an interim determine. His actual mission, so these analysts believed, was to organize one other handover of the presidency, particularly to a member of the family, Nazarbayev’s daughter Dariga. Others have careworn that Tokayev remains to be overshadowed by each Nazarbayev’s institutional energy and the de facto cult round his character.
It might be silly to make certain, however a situation wherein Tokayev is merely a handy instrument seems much less possible now. Nazarbayev’s successor might have been handpicked, however, it seems, he has a severe likelihood to be greater than a caretaker. Not less than one observer in Kazakhstan predicts that the transferal of the occasion management signifies that Tokayev even has the nod to run for a second time period.
If President Tokayev is, because it have been, more and more for actual, what does this suggest for the nation as a complete? One factor will not be more likely to occur: Nazarbayev’s place as a dwelling founding father of unbiased Kazakhstan won’t be doubted or bear public criticism. This strong standing will not be merely because of the former president’s acumen for managing his personal veneration. That, with the nation’s capital named after him now (examine a sure George Washington), has definitely performed a task.
But there may be extra to Nazarbayev’s standing. Like the opposite 4 states of post-Soviet Central Asia – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – Kazakhstan was, in essence, pushed into independence. Within the deep Soviet disaster of 1989-1991, it was Russia (most of all), Ukraine, and Belarus that took the lead in not merely weakening or shrinking however destroying the Soviet Union. Different former Soviet republics have been confronted with a fait accompli.
For these of Central Asia, the brand new scenario was particularly difficult: That they had seen main political upsets within the late-Soviet interval already, basically as a result of Moscow, in its quest for reform, reneged on the post-Stalin unwritten deal, whereby native elites may have interaction in nice corruption in return for loyalty.
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One consequence was an enormous recasting of elites, as a part of which Nazarbayev rose to energy in Kazakhstan. One other end result was rising social unrest, fanned additional by late-Soviet insurance policies of democratization and open debate. In Central Asia, problems with financial mis-development and discrimination by the Russian middle of the Soviet Union got here to the fore, even when Central Asians additionally derived actual advantages from the Soviet order.
In sum, the international locations of Central Asia reached independence with out ever actually being requested in the event that they wished it, and already having been shaken up. From this start line, their trajectories have performed out in a different way. Kazakhstan, on the entire, emerged as a state with pronounced authoritarian options that, however, nonetheless usually seems higher than a few of its neighbors within the area.
On the similar time, the nation’s endowment with pure assets, most significantly oil and gasoline, supplied the idea for an financial improvement that has produced nice inequality but in addition the best per capita GDP in Central Asia. Lastly, Kazakhstan’s management has a strong report of managing the nation’s difficult geopolitical place, permitting nobody nice energy (be it Russia, China, or the distant but as at all times over-reaching USA) to monopolize its consideration or loyalty. As well as, the nation has additionally concluded an Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Settlement with the EU.
But even when Nazarbayev’s contribution to the historical past of Kazakhstan’s independence will hardly be questioned, that doesn’t rule out challenges to Kazakhstan’s authoritarianism. That’s the situation which brings us again to the destiny of the poet Aron Atabek and what it’d imply for the long run.
Atabek was solely launched from jail when it was clearly too late to avoid wasting his life. His situation was abysmal, partially as a result of he was horribly underweight and affected by Covid. Critics plausibly cost that the authorities let him go to die.
However he isn’t the one political prisoner who has been launched. Tokayev, it’s true, has already been attacked for having talked about liberalization however not coming by means of or, at the least, delivering far too little. But the scenario stays fluid. The brand new president, who has simply grown in stature, has insisted that whereas trying towards a level of democratization, Kazakhstan doesn’t search to easily imitate West European fashions, and can retain a presidential political system.
It’s too early to inform what this may imply in follow. In actuality, there may be a lot room for Kazakhstan to develop into extra democratic whereas not copying Western Europe. The true query is what its management needs. The load of Tokayev in that management appears to have elevated, whereas his loyalty to Nazarbayev and the system he constructed has been the important thing situation for his rise. It’s inconceivable to foretell the end result of this constellation. It might, nevertheless, be silly to dismiss the opportunity of change.
The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the creator and don’t essentially symbolize these of RT.
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