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Kazakhstan’s government resigned on Wednesday after demonstrators clashed with police and stormed and set fire to major buildings, as anger at rising fuel prices escalated into protests across the commodity-rich central Asian nation.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Wednesday he was assuming control of the country’s Security Council, leaving questions over the role of its previous chair, former longtime president Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Mr Nazarbayev stepped down from the presidency in 2019 after three decades as the country’s autocratic leader but is considered to have retained significant influence as a “leader of the nation” figure and key ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The government’s resignation and Mr Nazarbayev’s displacement mark two massive concessions to the demands of those who joined the demonstrations, which kicked off three days ago and have snowballed into the biggest protest movements in Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet Union history.
The upheaval in one of Russia’s largest neighbours is also a challenge for Moscow, which has enjoyed a close and stable relationship with Kazakhstan’s leadership and will be sensitive to unrest in its backyard at a time of escalating tensions on its border with Ukraine.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it was keeping a keen eye on the situation, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kazakhstan could handle the situation on its own, and warned against “outside interference.”
In a televised broadcast on Wednesday, Mr Tokayev blamed the rare protests in the tightly controlled country on “financially motivated conspirators” and said crowds of bandits were beating up security services, leading to some deaths.
“As a result, as the head of state – and, as of today, as the chairman of the Security Council – I intend to act as forcefully as possible. It is a matter of the security of our citizens,” said Mr Tokayev, who is viewed as a loyal Nazarbayev ally.
Oil producer
Kazakhstan is a major oil producer and a member of the Opec+ group of countries that work together to manage crude supplies. Its biggest importance to global energy markets comes from its production of uranium, the radioactive material used in nuclear power plants. Last year, the country accounted for more than 40 per cent of global uranium output, while it is also in the world’s top dozen suppliers of zinc and copper.
Kazakhstan, like Russia and other countries in the region, has been struggling with rising prices for basic commodities amid the economic strain of the pandemic. Protests began with anger over fuel prices and the economy, but took on a political dimension and escalated despite Mr Tokayev’s announcement of the government’s resignation and appointment of a new temporary prime minister.
In the most populous city, Almaty, tear gas and stun grenades were used as protesters stormed the presidential palace and set fire to the city’s main administrative building. A video shared on social media showed protesters in another town in the Almaty area tearing down a statue of Mr Nazarbayev.
The government has responded by imposing a two-week state of emergency in Almaty, the oil-producing Mangystau province that started the movement and in the capital Nur-Sultan.
It introduced a curfew in the capital and blocked access to the internet almost nationwide, according to internet disruption monitors, with reports too of patchy mobile service and the suspension of some TV services.
Hundreds of people have been detained.
The mayor of Almaty blamed “provocateurs from within and outside” who he said were behind “destabilisation attempts and extremist actions”.
Outsiders accused
Some journalists and commentators in Moscow accused unspecified outside forces of intentionally stirring up protests in Kazakhstan to destabilise Russia’s eastern flank, ahead of a round of diplomatic negotiations when Moscow wants to discuss the balance of power to its west.
Washington, Moscow and Nato member states are set to meet for talks next week, when Russia intends to press for “security guarantees” to limit the military alliance’s expansion in Europe.
Andrei Klimov, the head of a commission in the upper house of Russia’s parliament tasked with protecting the country’s sovereignty and preventing interference in its affairs, said foreign groups, among them western non-government organisations, have worked in neighbouring countries for the past three decades with the intention of “increasing destructive pressure on Russia”.
Charles Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital, said the government, with a sovereign wealth fund worth 30 per cent of gross domestic product, had the resources to introduce measures appeasing protesters and restore order.
“The police may be taking a step back in recent hours, but presumably they will get more serious this evening when the curfew needs to be enforced,” he said. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022