OK, let's set the scene. Kazakhstan is
really huge—it's the size of Western
Europe. It's also pretty wealthy. It has
the biggest economy in Central Asia and
huge reserves of oil, natural gas and
minerals. Thing is most people in
Kazakhstan don't really benefit from
that wealth. The average person earns
less than $600 a month
and then there's a small group of super
rich tycoons.
162 people own around 50% of the
country's wealth, according to one report.
And for decades, there's
been one guy at the very top of that
system—Nursultan Nazarbayev.
He was a leading official back when
Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union
and then became president after
Kazakhstan got its independence in 1991.
Nazarbayev held on to the job for 30
years.
No real political opposition was allowed
to emerge and basically everything
revolved around him.
But in 2019
Nazarbayev finally stepped down as
president and his hand-picked successor,
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, became president—
in name anyway. Because Nazarbayev stuck
around. He kept his title of Elbasy—
that's "leader of the nation" and got a
lifetime appointment to head up
Kazakhstan's powerful Security Council.
But still, with Tokayev taking over as president,
there was a sense that change was in the
air. He promised to bring in some reforms
and even went on what he called a
listening tour around the country.
Trouble is, things didn't really change.
So when people woke up on the
first day of 2022 and saw that fuel
prices had doubled, well, that got people
going.
The protests started off peacefully in a
town in the west.
But within days they'd spread across the
country.
And even though the government quickly
reversed the fuel-price hike, by this
point the anger had become about so much
more.
Things soon got violent, especially in
Kazakhstan's biggest city, Almaty.
President Tokayev declared a state of
emergency and blamed what he called
terrorists, bandits and foreign actors
for what was happening, although he
didn't give any evidence and he said
this:
Here's something else Tokayev
did. He called for outside help from a
regional military alliance led by Russia.
It's called the Collective Security
Treaty Organization–the CSTO.
And it responded with around 2,500
soldiers, mostly Russians.
In any case, the crackdown seemed
to work. Within about a week things had
calmed down and those foreign troops
were on their way home.
The government said 225 people had been
killed, including 19 members of the
security forces. Around 12,000 people
have been arrested, so far.
Now, there's something else going on here and
that's all the political intrigue and
what looks like a power struggle at the
top.
Remember how we said that when Tokayev
became president, Nazarbayev was still
pulling the strings? Well, it looks like
things have shifted. During this whole
time Nazarbayev was nowhere to be seen.
There were even rumours he'd fled the
country, rumours he eventually denied in a
video statement on his website.
Now, in that statement Nazarbayev also
denied there were any divisions at the
top, but one thing looks pretty clear—
Tokayev seems to have strengthened his
position. Tokayev took Nazarbayev's job
as head of the Security Council, and a
close ally of Nazarbayev, the head of the
intelligence agency, was arrested for
treason. Tokayev also appointed a new
prime minister and a new cabinet.
But the big question is what this
actually means for people in Kazakhstan.
Are they going to see things change? He
announced a bunch of new policies, things
like higher taxes for mining companies
and a new social fund that the richest
people and companies are meant to pay into.
What we've seen with the recent events in Kazakhstan are the
first big signs of cracks in the system—
the old way of doing things. Tokayev
seems to be trying to paper over those
cracks, but will it work? And for how long?
In case you missed it
or haven't yet seen our most recent
explainer on what's happening in Ukraine,
we've linked it here for you. Also, make
sure to subscribe to this YouTube
channel so you don't miss our upcoming
episodes. And I'll see you next week