Kazak Leader Lays Ground for Re-Election

With Kazakstan’s presidential election still two years away, the incumbent Nursultan Nazarbaev. Is already taking steps to ensure a trouble-free victory. 

Nazarbaev had previously left his intentions unclear, with occasional hints over the years that he might stand down in 2012.

On September 16, however, the president’s political advisor Yermuhamet Yertysbaev confirmed that Nazarbaev would indeed be running again, and that he had told him so in person.

In an interview for the Svoboda Slova newspaper, Yertysbaev noted that constitutional amendments passed in 2007 allow Nazarbaev to run for office an unlimited number of times.

The announcement put paid to speculation that Nazarbaev might be considering post-2012 options such as getting himself made “president for life”, or stepping down but continuing to run things behind the scenes. The latter scenario seemed a real possibility when a law awarding him lifelong status as “Leader of the Nation” came into force in June. This grants him considerable political authority, as well as immunity from prosecution, if and when he decides to stand down.

“There will be no referendum on extending his authority or on a lifetime presidency. Those are all just rumours,” Yertysbaev said.

Nazarbaev became Communist Party chief of Soviet Kazakstan in the late 1980s and was elected president after independence in 1991. A referendum in 1995 extended this term, and he went on to win re-election in 1999 and 2005, the last time for an extended seven instead of five years.

Analysts say the president’s future is a key concern for the various political and business elite groups around him, who have an interest in shoring up their positions, and also in avoiding any risk that a succession process could lead to unrest similar to that experienced by neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, which has gone through chaotic regime-change twice in five years.

Even if it is now clear that Nazarbaev will stand and most likely win in 2012, options for the end of that term in office in 2017 are already being mulled over.

Maxim Kaznacheev, head of domestic politics at the Institute for Political Solutions in Almaty, says Nazarbaev’s immediate circle wants him simply to be elected president again. The ruling Nur Otan party, meanwhile, backs the Leader of the Nation, scenario, where Nazarbaev would leave day-to-day government in the hands of a fairly noiminal head of state. Finally, according to Kaznacheev, the life presidency model is the brainchild of the Security Council, a powerful body that sets policy in key areas.

President Nazarbaev still seems to be one step ahead of the rival factions that surround him, making sure that none gains too much of a hold on power.

The appointment of a close ally, Nurtay Abykaev, as head of the National Security Committee or KNB in August, has been interpreted as one such move.

The intelligence and security chief is a key figure in government, and all the more so at a time when Kazakstan is not only heading towards an election but is, like many countries, being buffeted by global financial crisis.

Abykaev held the post a decade ago, and has since occupied a number of senior positions, most recently that of deputy foreign minister, and his reinstatement reflects his closeness to Nazarbaev.

“They are people of the same generation; they have worked together for many years and understand one another completely,” Mukhit Asanbaev, president of the Aspekt-M Centre for Social and Humanitarian Studies, said. “The generational thing is quite important.”

According to Marat Shibutov of the Association for Border Cooperation, Abykaev’s appointment is designed to checkmate one of the elite groups, with its power-base in the south of the country, that has been gaining ground recently.

Over the last couple of years, the “southerners” have won control of the KNB, the interior ministry, the prosecution service of financial police and prosecutor’s office. They include first deputy prime minister Umurzak Shukeev, whose name has been floated as a possible prime minister, even president.

“It looks like other elite groups and the president, too, have become concerned about this [dominance], and this has prompted the beginning of attacks on the southerners,” Shibutov said.

“Abykaev was brought back because the KNB had been weakened as an institution, and had come under the southerners’ control – something that could not be allowed to happen. The idea is that Abyklaev sorts out the KNB, brings it under the president’s control, and purges the most undesirable figures from the security agencies.”

Other powerful groups include one which is believed to be led by Nazarbaev’ son-in-law Timur Kulibaev, and to control many energy sector firms and Samruk-Kazyna, a corporation with a wide portfolio of companies. Then there is the “Eurasian Group”, led by businessman Alexander Mashkevich and exercising influence in northern Kazakstan.

Another elite grouping used to operate around Rahat Aliev, another Nazarbaev son-in-law, who fell from grace in 2007 and is now in exile, wanted by the Kazak authorities to face criminal charges. According to Shibutov, it was the dismantling of this group that allowed the southerners to move in and consolidate their position.

Apart from addressing matters of court politics, Abykaev’s appointment provides the president with a KNB chief he can rely on to deal with grassroots protests.

“When we speak about public protests we’re not just talking about the activities of the [political] opposition forces,” said Aydos Sarimov, head of a foundation named after murdered politician Altynbek Sarsenbaev. “In my view, the current opposition doesn’t present the biggest danger for the authorities… some of the protesters don’t want to associate themselves with the opposition.” (For one recent attempt by the political opposition to curb Nazarbaev, see Opposition to Challenge Kazak Leader.)

In the couple of years since the economic crisis hit home, there have been protests across Kazakstan by groups as diverse as investors in failed companies, mortgage-payers in difficulty, oil industry workers, farmers and market traders.

In one recent incident in mid-September, six Chinese workers were taken to hospital after a brawl with Kazaks at an oil and gas field in the western Aktobe region. Analysts say relations between the two groups had been tense for some time because of local perceptions that the foreigners were getting better pay and working conditions.

Zarina Akhmatova is a journalist in Kazakstan.

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.