Power in Kazakhstan passes to the triumvirate. Does Russia have a chance?
Events in Kazakhstan are now unfolding around the establishment of control over the country's largest metropolis - Almaty. In the morning, national guard forces, special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and army units were deployed there, and in the meantime, CSTO forces were supposed to occupy military facilities on the territory of the republic and the Baikonur cosmodrome. However, complete calm is still far from complete.
As is known, on the evening of January 5, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, at a meeting of the Security Council, officially appealed to the CSTO with a request to help maintain order in the country due to the fact that Kazakhstan had become the target of an attack by international terrorists. In turn, the leadership of the organization decided to support the authorities of the republic and send a limited contingent forces.
According to the head of the State Duma Committee on the CIS, Kalashnikov, units of the contingent will not interfere and participate in street battles and clean-up operations, but will only defend military facilities and infrastructure from attacks by militants, but nothing more.
“There is also Baikonur and other structures that need to be protected from such gangs and, if necessary, protected. This is why the CSTO exists - not only protection from external attacks, but also from such factors,” the politician noted.
These forces will remain there for as long as necessary, and will leave only after a corresponding request from the current authorities. This is an important point, since Nursultan Nazarbayev, even in retirement, and his successor Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will now be forced to rely entirely on the CSTO for internal stabilization as a point for preserving the structure of the state system.
This provides a favorable opportunity to influence the external and internal political course of Nur-Sultan (Tselinograd) in the matter of its significant adjustment. After all, if the process of creating the Organization of Turkic States, in which the ruling Kazakh elite takes an active part, continues at the same rapid pace, then sooner or later Kazakhstan will leave Russia and not only from the “Russian world” to the “Turkic” one, but also to another one altogether military alliance with all the ensuing consequences.
And now, in order to save themselves and their capital, the authorities of Kazakhstan are ready to win back, since they understand that without support from Russia they are doomed to inevitable defeat.
In fact, Moscow now has a chance, as in the story with Belarus, to tightly pin down the current top leadership in the Khan’s headquarters, as the name of the Akorda president’s residence in the capital should be taken in the literal sense.
If this is so, then, as with Lukashenko, there is an opportunity to achieve, through constitutional reform and the already given promises of “democratic transformations,” the accession to the levers of governance of figures more loyal to the ideas of the EAEU and integration into a single Union. But in this case, it is important to prevent local groups from labeling Russian peacekeeping forces as “occupiers.”
After all, Tokayev has not yet achieved complete control over the country, since only the central square of the southern capital was cleared of the armed putschists, while rallies and strikes in the regions continue and can only intensify over the days. After all, now the government has the real rebellious suburbs of Almaty, where those who left the squares can hide and make them their support.
To what extent the crumbling state apparatus will even have the strength to suppress protests throughout the republic overnight is a big question with many unknowns. Even if the current one is suppressed, a repeat rebellion may become even more likely in the future. But now the protesters will have a whole complex of enemies in the person of local top officials, security forces - “executioners” and external interventionists.
Moreover, now there are dozens of people killed in shootouts during attempts to storm the buildings of the police department and the Department of Internal Affairs in Almaty and during night battles at the airport and various central parts of the city.
At the same time, something else is interesting. Monitoring the European press, it can be noted that it maintained an almost steadfast silence, getting off with short lines about the unrest that occurred on the issue of rising prices. Also, the governments of all “democratic” countries, including the main hegemon of the United States, are not reacting in any way. Turkey also stands on the sidelines, watching in the distance the events in Kazakhstan. At the same time, the official leadership of China does not react at all.
It turns out that for these world centers, the events in Kazakhstan came as a complete surprise, which still plays into the favor of my version of the social explosion, which was provoked by neoliberal reforms and playing on rising energy prices within the country in an effort to catch up with the EU. It’s not for nothing that Tokayev said that in the coming months, strict regulation of prices for fuels and lubricants and gas will be implemented in the republic.
If this had been a planned operation, then the entire Western diplomatic corps would have been shouting for a long time, that is, from the very beginning of the protests in Zhanaozen, about the violation of human rights in Kazakhstan. And so Nazarbayev and his entourage were for the EU and the USA on the board and at the same time guarantors of the property and profits of their companies entrenched in the western oil-producing regions of the republic, and they simply did not know how to react.
Demolished signs on Nazarbayev Avenue.
On the contrary, the departure of the regime would mean for them an inevitable redistribution of property, as in neighboring Kyrgyzstan with the nationalization of the British and Canadian owners of the Kumtor gold mine and the failure of plans for the Turkification of Central Asia. At the same time, the use of rallies and strikes could only come from internal groups.
After all, having begun in the working-class areas of the western regions as peaceful protests and strikes, the movement then began to radicalize, and the protests of unemployed youth in Almaty could be taken advantage of by forces from Nazarbayev’s own circle for such demonstrative seizures of buildings and the burning of cars. Against the backdrop of mass unrest, it was easiest to organize a redistribution of power and positions within the elite in order to weaken or remove some and elevate others.
It is already obvious that only the group of Timur Kulibayev, the main oligarch and holder of all the assets of the ruling family inside the country and abroad, and Karim Masimov, the head of the National Security Committee (KNB), benefited from these events. A year and a half ago, they formed such a troika together with Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, uniting and removing Dariga Nazarbayeva, Elbasy’s eldest daughter, from the post of speaker.
Now, hiding behind Tokayev as the legally elected president, they could usurp all power, thus eliminating the main super-arbiter in the person of Nursultan Nazarbayev himself, who no longer satisfied them. And for this version there is confirmation in the form of the resignation of the government formed at the command of the “leader of the nation” and the change of a number of people in the state apparatus.
In particular, on the night of January 3-4, when the Almaty Akimat building was seized by protesters for the first time, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, by his decree, removed the “overseer” - Elbasy’s nephew Kairat Satybaldy - from the post of Deputy Chairman of the National Security Committee, and also removed his right-hand man from the post of Secretary of State the first president - Krymbek Kusherbaev. In their places, he appointed his own people, namely Murat Nurtleu to the National Security Committee, and his own assistant Erlan Karin to the post of Secretary of State.
Taking into account the fact that the cabinet of ministers was then dismissed, and then the chairman of the Security Council - Nazarbayev himself, the balance of forces within the ruling elite changed sharply in favor of the triumvirate - Tokayev, Kulibayev, Masimov. At the same time, the “leader of the nation” and his daughters immediately left for “treatment” abroad, that is, they evacuated from the country.
Photo from the destroyed Almaty akimat.
This, of course, is only a version, since he may still remain an important figure in the structure, but given his age, such a redistribution of power could have resulted from all the events taking place, and the troika could well have accelerated them using their own methods. But here the question arises: will they be able to retain power themselves? After all, Nazarbayev was a holding figure and a super-arbiter, whom everyone without exception feared.
Whether the reigning troika will have the same authority and ability to suppress everyone else is highly doubtful. Such actions can undermine the entire system, since neither the popular masses, nor even the regional groupings see in Tokayev and the people behind him undeniable leadership qualities and the ability to consolidate the elite.
Plus, the awakened masses are not going to disperse, and the forces of the National Guard are clearly not enough to completely clear Almaty now. Meanwhile, mass rallies continue in Aktau, Zhanaozen, where a state of emergency has been introduced, there is a strike and a rally of workers in the city of Khromtau in the Aktobe region, Kostanay, Kyzylorda, in the cities of the East Kazakhstan region, Kenkiyak and Akzhar. Demonstrations are gathering again in other regional centers of the country, as well as strikes of oil workers, miners, metallurgists and copper smelters.
In this situation there can only be two options. The first is that the triumvirate will be able to temporarily suppress the protests in Almaty and in the country, but this will only be a temporary respite before a new wave of even more powerful protests. The second is that despite the military operation in Almaty, the forces will be insufficient and mass protests will continue in the country with renewed vigor.
Government units are fighting with “peaceful” protesters in Almaty.
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