Protests erupted in the city of Zhanaozen that lies in the Mangistau Province of Western Kazakhstan on 2nd January 2022 and quickly spread to almost all major cities of Kazakhstan. Things took a violent turn in Almaty, the largest city of Kazakhstan on 5th January 2022 when protesters stormed several government buildings, supermarkets, mayor's office, regional police headquarters and the Almaty headquarter of National Security Committee locally known as KNB that is the successor organization of the soviet era KGB.
Protestors torched the Mayor's office, the Presidential residence in Almaty, and several other buildings
including the Almaty headquarters of ruling party
Nur Otan that was
until recently led by former President Nursultan Nazarbayev. So, far the
protests are without a clearly identifiable leader and many political analysts
are considering them quite similar to the protests that rocked the Arab world
in the Arab Spring of early 2010s.
Main reasons behind the protests
The immediate reason behind the protests was the sharp rise
in prices of LPG gas that is used as vehicle fuel by majority of poor citizens
of Kazakhstan in the western region of the country. LPG gas was being sold at
around 50 tenge or around 12 cents per liter until 31st December
2021 and the authorities have already said in advance that the prices will rise
from 1st January as the government has decided to stop subsidizing
the price of lpg gas from 1st January 2022.
LPG gas prices rose dramatically to 120 tenge on 1st
January 2022 or around 27 cents, a steep rise of around 140% and this sparked
the protests by common citizens who saw this as another act of oppression in a
long list of complaints against the government. Kazakhstan is a natural resource-rich country that primarily relies on exports of Oil, Gas, Metals, and Minerals
such as Zinc, Chromium, Copper, Lead, and Uranium.
Oil and Gas along with mining account for almost 70% of the
GDP of Kazakhstan and hydrocarbons along with minerals are the major exports of
the country. Kazatomprom, the state-owned uranium mining company accounts for
almost 40% of all the uranium mined globally and has ensured Kazakhstan's
position as the largest uranium mining nation in the world since at least 2009.
Kazakhstan has the 10th or 11th largest
oil reserves in the world and has attracted billions of dollars in FDI since
the dissolution of Soviet Union in its hydrocarbon extraction sector. Some of
the major oil companies such as BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, CNPC, Gazprom, Eni,
and Rosneft have significant presence in the oil extraction sector of
Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh economy performed quite well until 2014 when the
price of crude oil crashed from a high of $147 per barrel to a low of around
$30 per barrel in less than a year. At that time alone, an estimated 200,000
people who were employed in the oil and gas sector lost their jobs due to the
reduced production of crude oil.
Poor economic conditions have made life of common citizens
quite difficult, and the high rate of inflation over the past few years has
further reduced the purchasing power of Kazakhstan's citizens. This when
coupled with high levels of corruption, and lack of economic reforms has
provided the perfect conditions for discontent in general population who are
often paid quite low wages.
Discontent against former President Nazarbayev
Former President Nursultan Nazarbayev has tightly controlled
Kazakhstan since its Independence from Soviet Union in 1991. The long reign of
Nazarbayev who resigned in 2019 has ensured that people from his immediate
family such as his daughters, sons-in-law, brothers, and nephews have been able
to monopolize whole sectors of the economy of Kazakhstan.
Nazarbayev's son-in-law Timur Kulibayev is ranked as the
richest person in Kazakhstan by Forbes as he controls the leading bank in the
country, along with several other companies. Nazarbayev's daughter Dariga
Nazarbayeva was named in both Panama Papers, and Pandora Papers and is accused
of amassing a huge fortune that runs in billions of dollars.
The huge wealth of Nazarbayev family is in stark contrast to
the poor living conditions faced by an average Kazakh citizen who often has to
work for a nominal wage of $300-$400. Wages for experienced teachers, doctors, managers,
engineers, and other professionals in Kazakhstan are often less than $500 a
month which comes as a shock to many as a country that earns billions of
dollars in natural resource exports is unable to provide decent living wages to
most of its citizens.
It's been an open secret that people close to former President
Nazarbayev controls huge swaths of the entire economy of the country and this
concentration of wealth in few hands has been the main reason of discontent in the
population of Kazakhstan.
Kazakh population was content and overlooked the excesses of
Nazarbayev's regime until the economy was doing well. But as economy took a
noticeable downturn in the aftermath of the crude oil price crash of 2014, people
could simply no longer turn an eye away from the huge mismatch in income and
wealth.
Nursultan Nazarbayev officially resigned in 2019 from the
post of President, but not before creating other structures that allow him to
run the show from behind the curtains. Constitutional amendments ensure that
Nazarbayev will remain as the Chairman of the powerful Security Council of
Kazakhstan that controls the armed forces, police forces, and foreign policy of
the country.
Nazarbayev enjoys the title of Elbasy that means leader of
the nation and this status ensures that he cannot be tried in any court of law
during his life and thus enjoys immunity from any criminal or civil court of
law for any actions that he took during his long reign.
President Nazarbayev also built a cult of personality around
him that has led to a museum named after him known as the museum of first President,
a university that was constructed at a cost of more than $2 billion known as
Nazarbayev University. This cult of personality reached its highest levels at
the end of Nazarbayev's career when the capital of Kazakhstan Astana was
renamed as Nursultan in the honor of Nazarbayev in 2019.
Nazarbayev has ensured that he controls the politics of the
country despite leaving the post of President by appointing people close to him
to major posts in the country. Karim Massimov who served as Prime Minister of
Kazakhstan and was until 5th January 2022 the head of National
Security Committee is a Nazarbayev loyalist. The deputy head of National
Security Committee was Samat Abishev who is the nephew of Nazarbayev.
Indeed, the main demand of protestors in Kazakhstan over the
last few days has been the removal of all people close to former President Nazarbayev
from influential posts in the country. The mood and slogans of the protestors
suggest that they want a complete overhaul of the political system with the cries
of "Shal Ket" meaning "old man go away" in Kazakh
dominating the main squares and protest sites in the country. It must be noted
that this is the same slogan that was used by protestors in Kazakhstan in the
protests of 2016 when the people were protesting against a law that allowed
foreigners to buy agricultural land in the country with many suspecting that
this new law will allow Chinese companies and investors to acquire substantial
landholdings in the country.
How peaceful protests turned violent
Most protests were peaceful until Monday evening and Tuesday
morning when the protests turned violent with the protestors storming the main
buildings of the government across several cities of Kazakhstan. Protestors
stormed Mayor's office, Presidential residence, local police headquarters, and
the main building of the feared intelligence agency known by its Russian
acronym KNB.
Almaty Mayor Office Burning Photograph: Valery Sharifulin TASS |
At present there is no clear information as what went wrong
and why peaceful protestors suddenly turned violent. Some believe that as
police and intelligence agencies in the country have stayed neutral in the
preceding days and haven't done much to stop the protestors, so this has emboldened
the protestors.
Riot police patrol a street in Almaty Photograph: EPA |
While another group of commentators that includes Mukhtar
Ablyazov, and Akezhan Kazhegeldin both former ministers in the government of
Kazakhstan and current opposition leaders who live in exile believe that the
events of 5th January were orchestrated by supporters of Nazarbayev
who wanted to cause damage to public buildings, supermarkets, and public
property to discredit the protestors.
Whatever may be the reason behind the events of 5th
January, these events have allowed the President Tokayev of Kazakhstan to label
protestors as "armed group of terrorists and bandits" who are intent
on destabilizing the country.
Actions taken by President Tokayev
President Kassym Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan initially
adopted a conciliatory tone towards protestors and asked them to negotiate with
the government so that a solution to their problems could be found. On 4th
January, President Tokayev dismissed the government led by Prime Minister Askar
Mamin holding them accountable for the protests and poor economy of the
country.
Tokayev also took other actions to calm down the protestors
such as removing both the head and deputy head of KNB who both were appointed by
his predecessor Nazarbayev and were largely seen as Nazarbayev loyalists by the
population of Kazakhstan. He also announced that he is assuming the role of
Chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan and has removed Nursultan
Nazarbayev from the post of Chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan with
the immediate effect. This removal of Nazarbayev from Security Council of
Kazakhstan was one of the main demands of the protestors.
Tokayev also issued a decree that effectively put a
moratorium on price of LPG, petrol, and diesel in the whole country for the
next 6 months. But none of the actions taken by President Tokayev succeeded in
calming the protestors as huge groups of protestors stormed government
buildings, supermarkets, banks, and business centers on 5th January.
After the protests took a violent turn on 5th
January, Tokayev held discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. After these discussions, Kazakh
government officially requested CSTO or Collective Security Treaty Organization
to send peacekeepers to the country to restore law and order.
Response of the neighboring countries
Kazakhstan participates in several regional organizations
that include its neighbors who along with it were a part of the former Soviet
Union. One such organization is CSTO, a collective defense organization that
was intended to be a forum that would allow post-soviet states to coordinate
their defense policies against external aggression.
Article 4 of the CSTO treaty allows member states to send
peacekeeping forces to a member under attack. Current CSTO chairman Armenia has
positively responded to the request of Kazakh government for peacekeeping
forces and the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that the
organization will be sending an unspecified number of peacekeeping forces to
the country to help its government.
Earlier on 6th January, videos surfaced on social
media that purportedly showed Russian troops being airlifted to Kazakhstan. It
remains to be seen how these protests will end and whether foreign help in the
form of peacekeeping forces will be sufficient for the government of Kazakhstan
to overcome this challenge of protests that seems to have a backing of a large section of population of the country.
Author: Hamza