[ad_1]
Regardless of the extent to which Tokayev himself is committed to change, one way or another, he will have to rely on the support of at least part of civil society: he has too few other political options. It is noteworthy that, judging by very diverse sources – from social networks to my interlocutors both in Almaty and among opposition-minded emigrants – people are still rather inclined to give an advance of confidence in Tokayev. And this despite his attempt to identify political protest with terrorism “from outside”, despite the ongoing series of arrests of activists and, finally, a very likely deal with Vladimir Putin. The fact of the latter, of course, has not been proven, but otherwise it is difficult to interpret the sequence of events “a meeting in St. Petersburg – a wave of protests – a rebellion in Almaty – a lightning-fast deployment of CSTO troops”, and all this within ten days.
It is still unclear what Putin got or will get as a result of this hypothetical deal, but this is far from the only ambiguity in this whole story. Besides the obvious question of whether Nazarbayev is alive and where (as well as why his daughter Dariga, until recently one of the country’s leading politicians, is silent), it is not clear, for example, the almost complete disregard for events in Kazakhstan by the international community. It would seem that the large-scale interests of American, British and Chinese companies are potentially affected – not to mention the introduction of CSTO troops – but everything was managed with on-duty “expressions of concern”, rare and sluggish. Even the stock market, which is usually very sensitive not only to risks, but to rumors about risks, reacted quite calmly: in the first two weeks of January, the national KASE index fell by no more than 3.5%; True, the main “blue chips” of Kazakhstan – the bank “Kaspi” and “Kazatomprom” fell much deeper, but in recent days they have been recovering their positions quite quickly. At the same time, according to business consultants working in the Kazakhstani market, the political shake-up has significantly worsened the image of the country: one of the interlocutors told me that three large European companies that were seriously studying the issue of opening branches in Kazakhstan abruptly canceled their plans.
As an experimental model, Kazakhstan’s “transit” is undoubtedly of particular importance for Russia, where the aging ruler is more and more like Nazarbayev typologically. Commentators often say that the current events in Kazakhstan will finally convince Putin to abandon any option of a “successor” and hold on to power exclusively by himself. However, on the other hand, turbulence in the neighboring country affects not only the Kremlin, but also Russian citizens. The idea of “the old man leaving” may well be very contagious.
Now, more than ever before, Kazakh society has a chance to influence its political oligarchy and get at least relative democratic concessions from it. This important experience for Russia is more than a weighty reason to start understanding the intricacies of the modern politics of our southern neighbor, instead of feeding your geopolitical troll or shining with knowledge of the names and belonging to the zhuzes of the main Kazakh clans.
[ad_2]
Source link
