ALMATY – Kazakhstan holds a referendum Sunday to overhaul its constitution after deadly unrest in January ended founding leader Nursultan Nazarbayev’s three-decade grip on Central Asia’s richest country.
The bloodshed – sparked by protests over a spike in prices for car fuel – left more than 230 people dead and prompted authorities to call in troops from a Russia-led security bloc.
The drive for a “New Kazakhstan” in the wake of the violence has come from the man that Nazarbayev hand-picked to replace him as president in 2019, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
Tokayev has billed the snap referendum as a shift from a “super-presidential” rule that will strengthen parliament.
But it is the absence of special privileges for 81-year-old Nazarbayev that is the most eye-catching change to the constitution.
Prior to January’s crisis, Tokayev, 69, was widely seen as ruling in the shadow of Nazarbayev and his super-rich relatives.
Even after stepping down as president, Nazarbayev retained the constitutional title of “Elbasy”, or “Leader of the Nation” – a role that afforded him influence over policymaking regardless of his formal position.
The new constitution does away with that status.
Another amendment prevents relatives of the president from holding government positions – a clear nod to the influence of Nazarbayev’s family and in-laws, who lost powerful positions in the aftermath of the violence.
“Got old, made mistakes”
Alnur Ilyashev, a long-time government critic, told AFP that the plebiscite is an attempt to “legitimise” Tokayev in the aftermath of the bloodshed and “formalise the retirement” of his predecessor.
The amendments were drafted “without the participation of protest-oriented civil society or authoritative human rights activists,” said Ilyashev, who in 2020 spent two months in jail for criticising the authorities’ pandemic response.
In Almaty, the epicentre of January’s violence, many are ambivalent about the referendum which seeks to amend around a third of the constitution’s articles.
The changes are almost certain to pass, and there has been no visible “no” campaign.
Ilyas Son, a 38-year-old courier, said he supported Tokayev’s declared reform drive, despite not having the time to vote on Sunday.
“Nazarbayev did things for Kazakhstan, but he got old, made mistakes,” Son told AFP.
“He trusted the wrong people. That’s life.”
Kazakhstan’s New Year unrest remains poorly understood, with a days-long Internet shutdown at the peak of the crisis helping to further obscure the events.
The protests broke out in the oil-producing but economically underdeveloped west, with peaceful demonstrators calling for Nazarbayev’s exit and the resignation of the government on top of demands to lower prices for liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
On January 5 the unrest escalated, as crowds stormed and burned government buildings in key cities including the largest Almaty. The capital, named Nur-Sultan in Nazarbayev’s honour, remained largely untouched.
Leadership struggle
Tokayev blamed the violence on “terrorists” seeking to seize power and ordered Kazakh troops to “shoot to kill” as the unrest spread.
But the arrest on treason charges of a Nazarbayev ally who served as national security chief at the time fuelled speculation that a leadership struggle underpinned the worst of the violence.
When stability was restored, Tokayev made a rare public criticism of Nazarbayev for creating “a layer of wealthy people” while many Kazakhs remain impoverished.
But he has balanced that barb with praise for his mentor’s historical achievements during a reign that began when Kazakhstan was still a Soviet republic, signalling that the president’s overall legacy is safe.
Both Nazarbayev and Tokayev are allies of neighbouring Russia, and the arrival of a 2,000-plus detachment of peacekeepers from a Moscow-led security bloc helped restore order.
The Kremlin claimed the intervention requested by Tokayev did not extend to any political settlement, which was “the internal affair of Kazakhstan”.
Nazarbayev has made few public appearances since the crisis but gave a rare interview published on Monday in which he pledged support for Tokayev and the constitutional changes.
He added that his relatives should be “held accountable” if they broke the law, but were entitled to a fair trial. – AFP, June 2, 2022
