More than 100 days after the start of the Ukrainian War, Russian intervention to stabilize a crucial Central Asian neighbor, Kazakhstan, seems a distant past. But it took place in January, just before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the European country.
A new chapter of that crisis ended on Sunday (5), with 68% of Kazakh voters going to the polls to approve constitutional changes by 77% in a referendum.
On the surface and beyond, it is a victory for Putin. In January, with the first deployment of multinational troops from his mini-NATO, the Security Cooperation Treaty Organization, he supported the local government’s suppression of an insurrection.
The reasons for the crisis are multiple. It began with a pedestrian problem, the increase in the price of gas used by taxi drivers in regions of the country, and gained an air of institutional upheaval with the support of foreign elements.
Be that as it may, at its center was the power struggle between former dictator Nursultan Nazarbaiev and his nominated successor, Kassim-Jomart Tokayev, who in 2019 was given power in a negotiated transition — the family and political group of the man who ruled. the richest country in the region for three decades remained embedded in Kazakh economic life.
In addition, Nazarbaiev, now 81, was given the title of “father of the nation”, symbolic but not so much, saying a lot about his power behind the scenes.
The arrangement collapsed at the turn of the year, and in January Putin stepped in on Tokayev’s behalf — after years of supporting his predecessor in the name of stability on his vital Central Asian border. About 230 people died in the protests, but the Russians were able to quickly restore order.
Moscow created a geopolitical novelty and was even applauded by Beijing, which shared with the Kremlin the dispute for influence in the great producer of natural gas and uranium, not to mention the bitcoin mining centers. Allied fields of action in Cold War 2.0 seemed established. In little more than a month, the Kremlin would return to the role of world villain.
Either way, the Russian is in a position of strength in the region, having worked to save another local government, that of tiny Kyrgyzstan, in 2020.
The referendum proposed by Tokayev foresees the reduction of the president’s power and the increase of the role of Parliament, in addition to several sanitary measures to isolate the president’s relatives from party life and the country’s economy.
As it was done in a controlled environment, the referendum has elements of a “color revolution”, the term for pro-democracy movements stimulated by the West on ex-Soviet borders, but without threatening the pro-Kremlin status quo. Given the history, only time will tell whether his liberalizing bias of the 56 amendments to the Kazakh Constitution is real or just a veneer.
More importantly, the movement consolidates the end of the Nazarbaiev era by ignoring the post held by the former dictator, who was never seen again, by the way. Then Putin’s victory begins to take on nuances and even a warning sign for the Russian president.
When he finally decided to change the Russian Constitution in his favor, holding a referendum in 2020, Putin opened a Pandora’s box of speculation about his future. The most recurrent said that, despite maintaining the option of seeking two more re-elections and trying to stay in the chair until the age of 83, in 2036, the leader could date an exit Nazarbaiev.
The brevity of the arrangement in Kazakhstan is a warning to Putin that such an idea is not exactly safe. Of course, the Asian country is not Russia, which is much larger and more complex, but the movement in rival packs of elites there is not that different from what happens in its northern neighbor.
The Ukrainian War has led Russia to a political crossroads. Putin tightened his grip on the country, silencing dissent — a process that has been ongoing since the end of the illusory period of freedoms at the 2018 Russian-hosted World Cup.
There are signs here and there of discontent, but for now the harsh Western sanctions are read by the elite as a general attack on the country. This has reinforced Putin’s position, who has cemented his power over the groups that move below him in economics and politics to an unprecedented degree in his two decades in the Kremlin.
How long this will last, or whether Russia can slide into dictatorship, are open questions. But any transitional solution further down the road, if any, seems to have just lost the Nazarbaiev option in Putin’s view. And that can have consequences on the process, when and if it happens.
