Kazakhstan

In search of Nazarbayev

The question was being asked with increasing urgency last week: where is Nursultan Nazarbayev? Kazakhstan’s leader from 1991 until 2019, Nazarbayev has long been the arbiter of all business and political decisions in the central Asian nation, and the purveyor of an all-encompassing personality cult. In 2019, he handpicked a successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, while retaining power behind the scenes.

But after the worst unrest since independence broke out earlier this month, Nazarbayev was absent from public view. Official figures say 225 people died in the unrest and crackdown. Meanwhile, the man who personified Kazakhstan for so long seemed to have simply disappeared.

Some said he was hiding out on the shores of Lake Geneva or in Dubai. According to a number of sources, he remained in Kazakhstan, probably in the capital, Nur-Sultan, the city that bears his name.

“My best information is that Nazarbayev is alive, and furious negotiations are under way with Tokayev about the redistribution of assets,” a well-connected former western government official said last weekend.

Tokayev, once a loyalist, has used the crackdown to strip power from his former benefactor and Nazarbayev’s family, some of whom are accused of using the protests to unseat Tokayev and seize power.

One source insisted Nazarbayev is in China, but Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, a former minister and Nazarbayev adviser, said he believed his former boss was still in Kazakhstan. “Negotiations are ongoing, but it is clear the Nazarbayev era is over,” said Yertysbayev, adding that he blamed the recent violence on “reactionary and conservative forces from the Nazarbayev clan”.

While Tokayev has not criticised the former leader by name, the signs are that the personality cult is at an end. A statue toppled during the riots has not been repaired; street signs for Nazarbayev Avenue that were pulled down in Almaty, the country’s largest city, have not been reaffixed.

Authorities have arrested the former head of the security services, the Nazarbayev loyalist Karim Masimov, on charges of attempting to seize power. Last Saturday, it was announced that two of Nazarbayev’s sons-in-law had been fired from positions in key state companies. Other relatives fled the country.

Many in the elite were now rushing to declare their loyalty to Tokayev, said one well-connected business source, adding that any purge would hopefully be limited. “Tokayev is a sensible guy and he knows how important the image of the country is. He will not spray bullets with a machine gun, he will pick people off accurately with a sniper rifle.”

“Many people are moving from the Nazarbayev camp to the side of President Tokayev,” said Yertysbayev. “I think Nazarbayev didn’t watch the great film of Francis Ford Coppola The Godfather attentively enough,” he said. “There is no doubt that he is the father of the Kazakh independent state, but he’s a living person and he has his minuses. And the biggest is his sentimental love for his family and clan.”

The pervasion of Nazarbayev family members and their associates through state companies is one reason why supposedly loyal figures have been willing to change their tune so quickly. The spectacle is likely to prove instructive for other autocrats in the region.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whose current term expires in 2024, recently signed a law that would enable him to remain president until 2036, but analysts had also touted a Nazarbayev-like “father of the nation” role that would allow him a safe retirement from frontline politics while retaining ultimate control. Suddenly, that looks a less secure option.

Putin has offered Tokayev the military support of a Russia-led alliance to help regain control. It is likely that he made this support contingent on a safety guarantee for Nazarbayev. However, Putin will also have noted the speed at which Nazarbayev’s supposed devoted supporters deserted him.

‘He didn’t watch the great film The Godfather attentively enough,’ said one former adviser