Mystery Surrounds Absence of Kazakhstan’s Longtime Leader

Word of the longtime leader emerged Saturday, when his spokesman said the 81-year-old Mr. Nazarbayev was in the capital, Nur-Sultan, taking calls from allies and calling on Kazakhs to support his political heir, current President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The younger leader has tried to crush the uprising, issuing shoot-on-sight orders to Kazakh troops and summoning military assistance from Russia. He has also moved to curtail Mr. Nazarbayev’s authority.

On Wednesday, Mr. Tokayev removed Mr. Nazerbayev as chairman of the country’s security council, stripping him of his most important official position. Mr. Tokayev now holds the post himself.

The president has also removed important allies of Mr. Nazarbayev from the government, including the head of the powerful domestic security agency, who had served as prime minister under Mr. Nazarbayev. He was detained on suspicion of treason and replaced by Mr. Tokayev’s own head of presidential security.

On Wednesday, Mr. Tokayev dismissed the ministers in his cabinet, hand-selected by Mr. Nazarbayev, blaming them for the unrest.

All of that has led to questions about whether there is an elite power struggle playing out amid the violence. Diplomats say separate camps aligned with each of the two men are competing in a country where proximity to power and family connections are routes to favors and jobs.

“A political crisis around the transition of power has long been expected,” said Vasily Kashin, a specialist on former Soviet republics at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “Whether this is the cause or the consequence of the violence, Mr. Nazarbayev’s fortunes are unclear.”

Some observers believe Mr. Tokayev is trying to distance himself from the increasingly unpopular Mr. Nazerbayev. As crowds gathered earlier this week, they angrily chanted “Shal, ket!” or “Go away, old man!” in reference to the former president.

For decades, Mr. Nazarbayev personally shaped the country’s political system, centralizing power in the hands of a small and wealthy elite that has enjoyed the protection of the country’s well-trained security services, according to current and former diplomats.

Mr. Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, Dariga, was made speaker of Kazakhstan’s upper house of parliament, the second most powerful post in the country, where she served until 2020. His other daughter, Dinara, and her husband have created one of the largest business empires in the country.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Mr. Nazarbayev won friends in the West by giving up the nuclear weapons his country inherited from the Soviet Union. In the years that followed, he strengthened those ties by allowing U.S. oil majors in to tap into the country’s oil reserves.

“In a lot of ways he got off to a good start and his authoritarian rule was lighter than some of the other countries,” said William Courtney, a former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and adjunct senior fellow at the Rand Corporation.

But, Mr. Courtney said: “As time went on, he made fewer and fewer reforms, and authoritarian rule became autocratic rule while income inequality became a more important issue for average Kazakhs.”

Kazakh elections came and went, with Mr. Nazarbayev always winning more than 80% of the votes cast. Away from the ballet box, he put down challenges, even as dissent in the country grew.

In 2001, businessman and former energy, industry and trade minister Mukhtar Ablyazov helped found a political party that aimed to undo Mr. Nazarbayev’s centralized political system. The next year, Mr. Ablyazov was convicted of abusing his powers while minister and sentenced to six years in prison.

International pressure forced Mr. Nazarbayev to free him in 2003 and Mr. Ablyazov ultimately moved to Europe. Kazakh authorities say he has continued to fund opposition politics in Kazakhstan.

Following a drop in oil prices in 2008, resentment over the wealth of Mr. Nazarbayev and his family grew, resulting in a series of protests, some of which were violently suppressed. In 2011, oil workers demanding better pay were shot at by security services and more than a dozen were killed.

Demonstrations erupted in 2014 over a drop in the value of the national currency, and in 2016, people took to the streets to oppose land-reform measures that they felt would favor Chinese investors.

After formally handing power to Mr. Tokayev in 2019, Mr. Nazarbayev continued to largely control Kazakhstan’s political life, say Kazakh and foreign political observers, and he took on a series of titles giving him privileged status above the rest of the political class.

Under Mr. Tokayev, government policies stayed the same and living standards for many Kazakhs continued to fall.

Protests continued. Over time they took on a more political slant, with activists campaigning for a more liberal political system, with opposition parties allowed to compete in elections. Demonstrators took aim at the continuing role of Mr. Nazarbayev and the slow pace of change.

“Economic protests transformed into political ones,” said Diana T. Kudaibergenova, a Cambridge University sociologist and expert on Kazakhstan. “People saw that just because the president has gone, it doesn’t change the system.”

These protests have likewise elicited a heavy hand from the government, though this time Mr. Nazarbayev isn’t at the forefront of that response.

“Tokayev firmly has this situation in control,” said Rakhim Oshakbaev, director of TALAP, a think tank in Nur-Sultan.

Mr. Kashin of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics said the Russian presence showed Russia’s willingness to back Mr. Tokayev.

“Tokayev is a good leader and since the interest is keeping the system safe and stable, it was clear from the beginning that Moscow would back the current leader,” said Mr. Kashin.

Write to Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com and James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com