CIU Academician Assist. Prof. Dr. Direkli evaluated the protests in Kazakhstan

Cyprus International University (CIU) Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Political Sciences and International Relations Chair Assist. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Direkli, stating that in Kazakhstan, violent protests begun to occur with the coming of the new year, he noted that at the beginning, the protests were organized in order to protest the increasing gas prices, however, after a few days they took the form of massive protests across the country, criticizing the government.

Reminding that Kazakhstan is a country that was formed in Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Direkli went on to say, “Kasım Cömert Tokayev has been the President of the country since 2019. However, the real power belongs primarily to Nursultan Nazarbayev and his family, who from the year 1989, served as the President of the USSR Republic for the first two years, and then as Kazakhstan’s founding president”.

Stating that from Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan, most of the new post-Soviet countries are still negatively affected by the Soviet autocrat’s dominance, Direkli continued, “Also seen in Kazakhstan, old cadres like Nazarbayev built power centers, allowing their families and supporters to benefit from the wealth of oil and gas. This is why the theoretically wealthy Kazakhstan also has a reputation for kleptocracy.”

Direkli emphasized that for a long period of time, these groups in question used the income of the natural resources for their own families and the people around them, income that should have belonged to the whole country.

Direkli also noted that the primary reasons for the unrest in Kazakhstan are still uncertain, and went onto state, “However, the reality is that this is the opening of a new front after the post-cold war period and the Russia-US struggle”.

Explaining that Putin is aiming to increase Russia's geopolitical sphere of influence, Direkli elaborated, “However, the 2014 attack on Ukraine instead achieved in creating a purely Ukrainian identity, distancing the country from Russia. You can see the same examples with Georgia and Belarus”.

Advising that making up the Kazakhstan population is seventy per cent Kazakhs, Direkli added that twenty per cent of the population is made up of Russians and the remaining ten per cent consisting of other ethnic groups, such as Uzbek, Tatar, and German.

In his statement, Assist. Prof. Dr. Direkli pointed out that the events in Kazakhstan could possibly further increase the Russian influence in the country, and concluded “However, it would be difficult to say that what Russia has achieved in Ukraine, can easily be achieved in Kazakhstan as well. This is because both the West and China are aware of the regions importance, and they will not allow the Russians to have sole power in the Kazakh steppes”.