Who benefits from the crisis in Kazakhstan?

• For the past week, Kazakhstan has been agitated by demonstrations.

  After violence in Almaty, repression raged, killing more than 160 people.

  5,800 people were arrested, including the former head of the secret service Karim Massimov.

• Believing that its own security was threatened if its ally and neighbor fell into chaos, Russia sent troops to keep the peace and secure strategic sites.

• Kazakhstan is at the heart of a strategic area for several players in Central Asia.

  Who benefits from the crisis?

  20 Minutes

  tries to answer the question with two experts.

“We don't really know what happened. Arnaud Dubien, political scientist and researcher at Iris, is quickly cautious when discussing the crisis in Kazakhstan, which has already killed more than 160 people according to a government count. Starting from a rumbling against rising prices in the west of the country, the movement quickly reached the economic capital Almaty, where several official buildings were set on fire. Russia has sent troops there to ensure the security of the ruling power and certain strategic sites, but the unrest also appears to come from inside the government, the former head of the National Security Council having been arrested for high treason . So who is benefiting from the crisis? And how can Kazakhstan get out of it? 

put the question to two experts.

Putsch and counter-putsch

The rather classic demonstrations against the price of gas and containing some pro-democratic demands in the west of the country, have turned into much more "disturbing" facts in Almaty.

"There is something astonishing that it reaches such a level of violence so quickly", confirms Carole Grimaud Potter, professor of geopolitics of Russia at the University of Montpellier.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev spoke on Friday of "armed criminals", on whom the police were authorized to "shoot to kill" without warning, before indicating that "a significant number of foreign nationals" were among the 5,800 people arrested .

The cut of the Internet in the big cities on Tuesday further complicated the verification of the facts, but "an attempt at destabilization on the part of certain clans feeling the power to escape them and a purge for the benefit of the relatives of President Tokayev" have emerged. last days for Arnaud Dubien. Karim Massimov, former director of the National Security Council, both "right hand of former president Nazarbaïev and controller of president Tonkaïev", was thus arrested for "high treason". To support the hypothesis of a prepared uprising, the political scientist mentions the large number of police officers killed: an initial report had reported 26 civilians dead against 16 police officers, while "you do not have an equivalent ratio in a classic protest. with unarmed demonstrators ”.

The Russian intervention nevertheless consolidated the president in place, and Nursultan Nazarbaïev, "who is not in exile despite the rumors", specifies Arnaud Dubien, had to publicly encourage "to gather around the president of Kazakhstan".

However, the defeat of the one who ruled the country for ten years is not recorded.

"The most likely possibility is a status quo," said Carole Grimaud Potter.

Far from imagining a democratic transition "comparable to the Arab Spring", the researcher points out that Moscow will only help in the organization of new elections "in the event that they lead to a pro-Russian government".

Westerners "out of the game"

Russia is not the only one to have interests to defend in the former Soviet republic, "at the crossroads of influence" in Central Asia, according to the teacher from Montpellier. She also sees in these troubles "the upheavals of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan", and cites, among the countries which can lose or win with this crisis, "China which invests in the country but remains badly perceived" or Turkey through its Organization of Turkish States. On the other hand, the European Union and the West are “out of the game” according to Arnaud Dubien, having “no leverage to act”.

The fate of Kazakhstan therefore seems to be played for a good part in the Kremlin, Russia sharing 7,000 kilometers of land borders with it. "A virtual border", estimates the one who also director of the Franco-Russian Observatory, "things can quickly get out of hand in the south of the Urals and Siberia if Kazakhstan sinks into chaos". The Russians also have strategic military interests in the country, such as the Baikonur Cosmodrome. However, unlike the American diplomat Anthony Blinken, the researcher does not believe in a lasting presence of the Russian army in Kazakhstan. "It is risky in terms of image, and the intervention was not desired at the base", partly depopulating the Ukrainian front, "but Moscow considered that not moving was even more risky", emphasizes -he.

But beyond the potential for destabilization in the region, the Kazakh crisis is above all a warning sign for Vladimir Poutine.

Whether it is the strong rejection of Nazarbayev, targeted by the demonstrations in the provinces, or Tonkaïev's desire to get rid of the men he left him, this illustrates a "failed transition" after 30 years in power.

However, "the question will arise in Russia, where lessons will surely be drawn from the end of the Nazarbaïev-Tokaïev cohabitation", warns Arnaud Dubien.

If this model of transition proves to be as ineffective in Moscow as in Kazakhstan, “it can be dangerous”.

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