Issued by CEMO Center - Paris
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Tokayev trims Nazarbayev’s claws: Kazakhstan's turmoil threatens security of Central Asia

Sunday 09/January/2022 - 04:42 PM
The Reference
Eslam Mohamed
طباعة

Since the beginning of January, the Republic of Kazakhstan has witnessed massive demonstrations accompanied by widespread violence, which initially started from the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau with protests against the rise in gas prices to twice the previous price. But the protests developed and took a dangerous curve, becoming attractive to political opponents of the regime in the capital, Nur-Sultan, which was established three decades ago and continues to this day in the person of current President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, an extension of the era of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev (1990-2019).

Nazarbayev disappeared into the shadows, but he did not come out of power completely. Rather, he kept holding in his hand the National Security Council, which appears to be the most important and most dangerous authority in the country. Therefore, the protests gathered citizens who were angry at the authority, and the protests went beyond the issue of raising prices to questioning the legitimacy of the regime in itself.

Demonstrations subsequently spread to other regions of the country, including Alma-Ata, the largest city in Kazakhstan and the former capital, while widespread bloody armed clashes erupted, killing dozens of people and wounding thousands, including among the protesters and security forces.

 

Foreign impact

Externally, these developments threaten to spread the contagion of revolutions and protests to the neighboring Central Asian countries, which Moscow fears and does not allow in any of the areas that were formerly affiliated with the Soviet Union, where it still maintains influence.

In light of these developments, Tokayev announced the dismissal of the government and the dismissal of Nazarbayev, taking on the chairmanship of the National Security Council himself, as well as the imposition of a state of emergency throughout the country and an official invitation to the Collective Security Treaty Organization led by Russia to send peacekeeping forces to the country. Indeed, numbers of Russian troops have reached the Kazakh lands, while opposition leaders have declared that they consider these forces to be an occupying army invading their country.

Kazakhstan's protests are a concern across Russia's southern border, because it maintains the Baikonur Cosmodrome there, through which Russian space missions are launched, and a large Russian minority, representing 20 percent of the population, lives in Kazakhstan.

At these times, Moscow is busy escalating tensions with Washington and the European Union by inflaming the situation in Ukraine, where huge forces are massing on its border, so the protests in its southern neighbor are an unwelcome distraction.


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