Two years after Kazakhstan’s tragic January events, Tokayev offers his explanation

Two years after the tragic unrest of January 2022 that resulted in 200 deaths, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev described the events as an attempted coup organised by a “group of high-ranking officials” with the help of “terrorists who arrived from outside”.

In a New Year’s interview coinciding with the second anniversary of the turmoil that shook the Central Asian country in the week starting on 2 January 2022, Tokayev gave the most elaborate analysis so far of the unrest, which appeared to be sparked by the increase of the price of liquified gas.

Insider's account: The Kazakhstan unrest

A trusted EURACTIV source in Almaty gave a rare first-hand account of the Kazakhstan unrest that shook up the Central Asian country in the first days of 2022.

Tokayev admitted that the events unfolded in the context of “many years of unresolved socio-economic problems and general stagnation”. He said that after his election as president in 2019, he steered the country on a course to democratise the political system, liberalise public life, and demonopolise the economy.

“I’ll be honest: this new course aroused sharp rejection by influential people, who perceived it as a threat to the deeply rooted state of affairs in the country and their privileged status in power structures”, Tokayev said, adding:

“In the end, in order to reverse the transformation and restore the previous order, they decided to take extreme measures”.

He did not name any of the “influential people”. However, it has been previously reported that Karim Massimov, former president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s chief security official, and his former deputy Anuar Sadykulov, have been prosecuted for for treason, abuse of power, and actions aimed at violently seizing power.

Officials with ‘enormous influence’

The president said that the group of high-ranking officials had “enormous influence on the security forces and criminals”, so the option of organising a “violent seizure of power was chosen”, with preparations having begun around mid-2021.

He said that the “ill-considered” decision to sharply increase prices for liquefied gas was used by the perpetrators to incite people to demonstrate and take advantage of the situation.

Tokayev said that “specially trained people” did their best to escalate tensions. Further, he said that “criminal gangs got involved, whose leaders were controlled by the conspirators and had contacts with terrorists, including those who arrived from outside”.

He did not name the country or countries from where the “terrorists” came or their nationality.

“Extremists, criminals, and religious radicals jointly participated in the coup attempt. Their goal was to sow fear among citizens, disorganise state institutions, undermine the constitutional order and, ultimately, seize power,” Tokayev said.

He said that Akorda, the presidential office, was one of the targets of the attacks, and that he had been repeatedly recommended to leave it, even flee abroad, but he strongly disagreed.

Asked how he would respond to those who consider the January events as a popular uprising, Tokayev said that people do not come to demonstrate with machine guns.

“I’ll say it straight: Discussions about an alleged popular uprising contribute to the justification and whitewashing of criminal acts. Such irresponsible, essentially provocative conversations lead to the glorification of real bandits and the rooting of harmful criminal psychology in society.”

Asked how citizens can express their criticism towards the authorities, he said:

“It is necessary to understand very clearly: peaceful protests are acceptable, but mass riots are unacceptable and will be harshly suppressed.”

Tokayev also said he personally wanted to differentiate between protesters and those he called ‘provocateurs’.

“I decided to grant an amnesty to citizens who fell under the influence of provocateurs. The amnesty was applied to 1,095 citizens out of 1,205 previously convicted. And the organisers of the riots and those who received sentences for terrorist attacks, high treason, attempted violent seizure of power and other serious crimes will serve their sentences in full.’

Dual power?

Asked how he would dispel the impression that after his election as president in 2019 the country has two centers of power, referring to the influence of the former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Tokayev said that indeed, such attempts were deliberately made by “political manipulators”.

He went on:

“I will say more: this situation became one of the prerequisites for the January crisis. Because the conspirators tried to use the invented model of dual power or “tandem” to their advantage. […[ Later, I directly told Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev that the political games, first of all, of his closest associates almost tore the country apart.”

The journalist asked Tokayev to comment on the recently published memoirs by Nazarbayev and he replied suggesting that they should be taken with a pinch of salt.

“In my opinion, this book is of interest as a chronicle of the construction of our Independence. As one commentator said, memoirs are important because even if there is only 50% of truth in them, this is already enough to imagine the scale of historical events.”

The president said that after the January events, there were fears that the authorities would “tighten the screws” to preserve the regime.

“However, we did the opposite, taking a more difficult but correct path”, he said, adding that instead of such tightening, the process of political modernisation accelerated.

A milestone in the reforms was the constitutional referendum of June 2022.

Kazakhstan’s constitutional referendum explained

On Friday (3 June), Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev gave the shortest speech of his career – only three minutes, expressing the ambition “to make New Kazakhstan a reality” in which social justice would be the principal value.

The referendum, Tokayev said, made sure that a return to the past was no longer possible.

Asked to comment on Western criticism of having political prisoners in Kazakhstan, Tokayev said there was no legal text in the country under which citizens could be prosecuted for their political views.

But he added:

“Some individuals, despite warnings from the prosecutor’s office, violate the law with strange persistence, apparently in this way trying to gain wide public fame. In other words, they put themselves above the law.”

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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