Two weeks before the outbreak of protests in January 2022, Kazakhstan marked three decades of its independence. After the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, it faced a triple transition. All three were painstaking, but only the one concerning the building of an independent state can be said to have succeeded. Building democracy was not even intended and building a market economy instead of a planned one seems an unfinished project. There are many reasons for this, but the actors who have been prominent in Kazakhstani politics over the last thirty years and have contributed to it are widely known. The most prominent among them in recent days was the often-mentioned Nursultan Nazarbayev. He came to the helm of Kazakhstan in the spring of 1989, when he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, and after the institution of the President of the Republic was introduced in 1991, Nazarbayev won the election and ruled for the next 28 years. Unlike the Soviet period when the Communist Party was the bearer of autocracy, the strongest figure in the new political regime became the president, although his power in the first years was not guaranteed. Given that the formal rules of politics in undemocratic regimes largely do not coincide with informal rules, Nazarbayev could not rely solely on his powerful constitutional powers but had to establish such power relations among political elites that would guarantee the security of his government.
Nazarbayev acted in two directions. One concerned the construction of a political regime in which there would be no effective opposition to it. Like Lukashenko in Belarus or Kuchma in Ukraine, he first confronted the parliament in the 1990s – in the summer of 1995, after the parliament had already been dissolved, a new constitution was adopted in a referendum, which further increased the president’s power – and suppressed or at least brought the opposition under control. But Nazarbayev also occasionally encountered rebels in his own ranks. Some of them founded the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan in 2001, which departed from the existing framework of political power established by the president, but Nazarbayev dealt with them quickly and fiercely. By the mid-2000s, he had marginalized or destroyed opposition parties and imprisoned some politicians. His party, Nur Otan, has since dominated parliament and the party system.
Although this helped consolidate Nazarbayev’s rule, the other direction of Nazarbayev’s politics, which concerned the enrichment of his family and the political elite gathered around them, is probably more important for actual public discontent. Given that the country is rich in natural resources in demand on the world market, Kazakhstan had good prospects for economic development, which should have had a strong impact on the growth of living standards. Instead, due to the widespread corruption and nepotism and the authoritarian regime that made it possible, development has benefited the elite much more than the citizens. Even the rest of the world found out about some of the corruption scandals in which Nazarbayev was involved. One of the most known was the so-called Kazakhgate in 2003, when the American prosecutor's office accused US citizen James Giffen of bribing Nazarbayev in connection with Kazakhstan’s oil fields. Another well-known example of nepotism is the rise of the president’s daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva. Thanks to her father’s influence, she reached some of the highest political positions in the country in the 2000s, and over the years she has become extremely rich. Forbes estimated the wealth of the president’s second daughter Dinara Kulibaeva’s at as much as 2.9 billion USD.
The standard of living of the population has grown over the years, but not enough to meet even the basic living needs of many citizens. In a huge country of about 2.7 million square kilometers, there are huge differences in development as well as in the cost of living, but there is also an awareness of citizens about the difference in wealth between them and the elite. Income inequality in the country is high, and according to the World Bank, the statistical measure of income inequality Gini coefficient for Kazakhstan in 2005 was 39.8, while by 2018 it fell to 27.8. Kazakhstan’s average salary in 2021 of $ 570 doesn’t seem that bad for that part of the world, but the minimum wage was just over $ 100. Recent protests, as well as the experience of the author of this text when he was in Astana seven years ago, have shown that many citizens have earned just a little more than that. Dissatisfaction with this flourished and citizens often protested, but not on a large scale. Due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the standard of living of many citizens has deteriorated even more and their dissatisfaction exploded on the second day of 2022 in the city of Zhanaozen, and then throughout the country.
The reason why the protests were not only held in a place where the price of liquefied gas has increased, but have spread throughout Kazakhstan, lies at the core of Kazakhstan’s existing power structure. The political system is not flexible, but the elite is trying to solve all the problems so that the citizens do not have a significant influence in politics. Free and fair elections that allow voters’ will to turn into parliamentary seats and determine who will be president do not exist. Citizens thus do not have an “outlet” through which to express their frustrations other than to take to the streets or complain in their narrow circle. This danger must be taken into account by the elite, which seeks to make the current regime sustainable. Since members of the elite cannot rule forever due to aging and death, they are trying to make controlled changes that will preserve the privileges of the heirs and supporters of the outgoing leader. Nazarbayev sought to ensure a controlled transfer of power before his death. In March 2019, he resigned as president, received the title of “Elbasy” (leader of the nation) and became president of the Security Council of Kazakhstan. He chose Senate President and former Prime Minister Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as his successor.
The old elite continued to do business and rule even after that change, but that does not mean that it was homogeneous and united in its attitudes. Nazarbayev retained some political power, presumably to protect himself and his family from retaliation and retain acquired privileges, but the new president could not become an independent ruler with his own structure of political power, which Nazarbayev clearly did not like. This indicated that after 2019, there was a change within the regime, but not a change of the regime. A significant change occurred only with these protests in which Tokayev proved to be skilled in Machiavellian terms. On the one hand, they pointed to the vulnerability of his government, and he was therefore very brutal in his intention to keep the citizens and the elite as separate entities. He called the protesters bandits and terrorists trained from outside and thus tried to create the impression that the protests were not the result of the situation in the country, but external elements were trying to destabilize it. On the other hand, he used the state of emergency during the protest to consolidate his position and power and start getting rid of Nazarbayev’s old guard: he “accepted the resignation” of Nazarbayev from the post of President of the Security Council of Kazakhstan, arrested former Nazarbayev's prime minister and the current head of National Security Committee Karim Massimov accusing him of an attempt to overthrow the government, and then some other members of the security services also began to fall. He quickly struck at the very heart of the former regime, the Nazarbayev family. In the days leading up to the completion of this text on January 19, he indirectly criticized the former president in a public address by condemning lucrative jobs and the rich people emerging during his rule, removed all three of Nazarbayev's sons-in-law from large companies and his nephew from the post of Deputy Chairman of the National Security Committee. Addressing the public on January 18, Nazarbayev denied that there were any disagreements between him and the president, and announced that Tokayev would become the new leader of Nur Otan. Although, at the time of completion of this text, not all the changes have been executed, it now seems that Tokayev has become the biggest winner of these protests, and that the power and influence of the former president and his supporters are deteriorating.
The reason why the Kazakh regime is changing in this way lies in the nature of the authoritarian regime. While the democratic regime is consolidated through institutions and formal and informal rules that last longer than the current holders of power, the authoritarian regime is based on informal power structures and individuals and groups that create them for themselves. In order to create the basis of an authoritarian regime in this part of the world, it is necessary to rely on social strata dating back to the pre-Soviet period. These are clans, hordes and family ties that influence who will come to power and where they will build the base of their support. In addition, modern autocratic regimes are not based on a binding ideology and para-religion that glorifies the head of state. While during Stalin’s repression people were shot and shouted “Long live Stalin!”, today members of the regime are primarily seeking their personal interest to participate in it, without any faith in a supernatural leader and historical laws. Therefore, the regime declaratively condemns corruption, but it also needs it as an instrument to satisfy the interests of its supporters and thus gain their support. But that is the Catch-22 for the stability of the regime. If corruption is part of its foundation, it at the same time hampers economic development and the growth of living standards, and therefore raises dissatisfaction among the population. Despite the authoritarian regime trying to prevent this by encouraging the political inactivity of the population, it cannot expect their lasting support if social exclusion and feelings of injustice become too strong. The stability of the regime is therefore only temporary, and it is necessary to find a new balance in order to restore it or it will fall. Tokayev, therefore, is vulnerable not only now, but will be in the future if he does not change the existing policy and does not make certain concessions to the population. But for change to happen, it must also not be too expensive for him and the elite, which means that a democratic regime will not be established yet, nor will corruption be significantly reduced. The curse of autocracies is that they are inherently unconsolidated. The curse of democracies is that they are difficult to establish.
