In January 2016, the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev called a snap election
in the face of numerous allegations of human rights abuses.
His 27 year long reign has been recently hampered falling oil prices and economic instability.
But Kazakhstan has never held a free and fair election, and was one of the last countries
to see independence following the fall of the Soviet Union.
So, we wanted to know, just how powerful is Kazakhstan?
Well, geographically, Kazakhstan is huge.
At one million square miles, the country is roughly the size of Western Europe.
But despite its size, Kazakhstan has a relatively small population of around 18 million, making
it the 61st most populated country in the world.
The population is also majority Muslim, and is actually the northernmost muslim majority
country in the world.
The region also has massive oil deposits, making up the majority of its economy.
Kazakhstan has a GDP of roughly $218 billion dollars, which is smaller than most US states
and European countries.
That being said, Kazakhstan's economy has grown wildly since the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
The discovery of oil and the sale of minerals like uranium, copper and zinc have helped
contribute to this growth.
In fact, Kazakhstan was the first former Soviet satellite to receive a positive global investment
ranking in 2002, meaning they were less vulnerable to invest in than other, lower ranked countries.
Militarily, Kazakhstan ranks as the 66th strongest in the world, with nearly half a million active
personnel.
In 2012, they spent a little over 1% of their GDP on military expenditures, which isn’t
much.
However, their close relations with neighboring Russia and China, as well as friendly association
with the United States, suggests they have little to fear of foreign aggression.
Additionally, they are a member of the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation,
and a NATO partnership peace program.
Kazakhstan also hosts the world’s first and largest space launch facility, which was
built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s.
It is still operational today, and serves to launch all manned Russian space missions.
Domestically, tensions between ethnic Russians and the ruling Kazakhs, have underscored President
Nazarbayev’s grip on the country.
For many years he has he has resisted free and fair democracy and silenced dissidents.
In 2011, his attempts at remaining in power without election until 2020 were ruled unconstitutional,
but today his party still holds a majority of seats in parliament.
But while Kazakhstan may be dealing with political troubles, it is still an important regional
power.
Between their considerable oil contributions, and strategic location for Russia and China,
Kazakhstan is actually more powerful than might seem at face value.
You can check out how powerful neighboring Russia is by watching this video at the top,
or just learn about a whole bunch of other countries by watching our “How Powerful”
playlist down here.
If there are any other countries you want to see, or any other topics you want us to
do, keep on telling us in the comments.
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