Kazakhstan’s Elite Infighting Continues

Written by Allan Millward | October 1, 2023

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The mystery surrounding a wave of deadly protests that engulfed Kazakhstan in January 2022, known as ‘Bloody January’, is slowly unraveling. With around 238 dead, what caused the protests was a subject of debate for some time. At the time, officials tried to frame the revolt as an intricate plot involving foreign-trained terrorists and bandits. However, few outside of Kazakhstan bought into such a poor explanation. Another interpretation is that former President Nazarbayev and his relatives were attempting to undermine and even unseat Nazarbayev’s replacement Tokayev. This understanding of events just received further validation after the recent arrest of Samat Abish, former deputy head of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, and Nazarbayev’s nephew.

Little information has been forthcoming on the investigation to date as the General Prosecutors Office has indicated that their work involves analyzing large amounts of confidential information. Former opposition leader Petr Svoik has been one of many who have expressed irritation with this claim. “The details of this story are very important, but we don’t know them,” Svoik explained. Immediately after the January unrest, a purge of the National Security Committee or KNB took place. Nazarbayev ally and Tokayev’s former rival KNB chief Karim Masimov was among those dismissed and later charged with high treason. However, at the time Abish had seemed to have avoided being charged despite his dismissal. This changed when Ruslan Iskakov, a senior KNB officer who was also charged recently explained that he was following Abish’s orders. Ruslan also claimed that he was not allowed to divulge this information publicly until now. Whether Tokayev and his allies were withholding this information or are now simply instructing Iskakov to lie, it remains clear that this ‘sudden reveal’ is more of a reflection of the changing power dynamics among Kazakhstan’s elites than it is a genuinely shocking discovery.