Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 5 (AFP\/APP): Voting was underway in Kazakhstan Sunday for a referendum to overhaul the constitution after deadly unrest in January ended the founding leader Nursultan Nazarbayev’s three-decade grip on Central Asia’s richest country.<\/p>\n
The bloodshed — which grew out of peaceful protests over a spike in car fuel prices — left more than 230 people dead and prompted authorities to call in troops from a Russia-led security bloc.<\/p>\n
The drive for a “New Kazakhstan” in the wake of the violence has come from the man that Nazarbayev hand-picked to replace him as president in 2019, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.<\/p>\n
Tokayev, 69, describes the snap referendum as a shift from “super-presidential” rule that will strengthen parliament.<\/p>\n
But it is the absence of special privileges for 81-year-old Nazarbayev that is the most eye-catching change to the constitution.<\/p>\n
Prior to January’s crisis, Tokayev was widely seen as ruling in the shadow of Nazarbayev and his super-rich relatives.<\/p>\n
Even after stepping down as president, Nazarbayev retained the constitutional title of “Elbasy”, or “Leader of the Nation” — a role that afforded him influence over policymaking regardless of his formal position.<\/p>\n
The new constitution does away with that status.<\/p>\n
Another amendment prevents relatives of the president from holding government positions — a clear nod to the influence of Nazarbayev’s family and in-laws, who lost powerful positions in the aftermath of the violence.<\/p>\n
– ‘Never any justice’ –<\/p>\n
Polling stations in the largest city Almaty saw a slow trickle of voters in cloudless, breezy summer conditions.<\/p>\n
Ayan, an 18-year-old student voting for the first time, said he welcomed the former president’s removal from the basic law.<\/p>\n
“He has his place is in our history textbooks, but all citizens should be equal in the constitution,” he said, after casting his vote at his university, where a small group of activists protested for the release of political prisoners and against the vote.<\/p>\n
In the capital Nur-Sultan, named for Nazarbayev, a 46-year-old businessman called Bolat told AFP that he did not intend to vote.<\/p>\n
“It’s a formality to cement the position of the current leadership. The result will be the same,” he said.<\/p>\n
The constitution is almost certain to pass, and there has been no visible “no” campaign.<\/p>\n
Voting in Almaty and Nur-Sultan began at 7:00 am (0100 GMT) and concludes at 8:00 pm (1400 GMT). Polling stations in the west will close an hour later, at 9:00 pm.<\/p>\n
Kazakhstan’s New Year crisis remains poorly understood, with a days-long internet shutdown at the peak of the unrest helping to further obscure the events.<\/p>\n
Protests stirred in the oil-producing west over a New Year fuel price hike, but it was Almaty — 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) away — that became the epicentre of armed clashes, looting and arson.<\/p>\n
Nur-Sultan, which was called Astana prior to 2019, remained largely untouched.<\/p>\n
– Leadership struggle –<\/p>\n
Tokayev blamed the violence on “terrorists” seeking to seize power and issued a “shoot-to-kill” order to Kazakh troops.<\/p>\n
But the arrest on treason charges of a Nazarbayev ally who served as national security chief at the time fuelled speculation that a leadership struggle was at the heart of the violence.<\/p>\n
After stability was restored, Tokayev criticised Nazarbayev for allowing inequality to fester, while crediting his mentor’s state-building achievements.<\/p>\n
Both former and current presidents are allies of neighbouring Russia, and the arrival of a 2,000-plus detachment of peacekeepers from a Moscow-led security bloc bolstered Tokayev’s control over the situation in January.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin claimed the intervention requested by Tokayev did not extend to any political settlement, which was “the internal affair of Kazakhstan”.<\/p>\n
Nazarbayev has made few public appearances since the crisis, but cast his vote in the capital Sunday, after expressing support for Tokayev and the changes.<\/p>\n
In an interview published Monday he said that his relatives should be “held accountable” if they committed crimes, but were entitled to a fair trial — an apparent reference to nephew Kairat Satybaldy, a businessman presently detained on embezzlement charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 5 (AFP\/APP): Voting was underway in Kazakhstan Sunday for a referendum to overhaul the constitution after deadly unrest in January ended the founding leader Nursultan Nazarbayev’s three-decade grip on Central Asia’s richest country. The bloodshed — which grew out of peaceful protests […]<\/p>\n
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