Protests in Kazakhstan turn violent as unrest spreads nationwide

Protests in Kazakhstan turned violent Wednesday as anger over a jump in fuel prices spilled into broader discontent with political and economic stagnation, raising concerns in Russia, its biggest trading-partner and ally.   

The demonstrations, which started over the weekend in western Kazakhstan, quickly swelled to the biggest since the country’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, handed power to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in 2019.  

Protesters stormed the mayor’s office and attempted to seize the presidential residence in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, with fires burning at both sites, Interfax reported. Some of the demonstrators called for Nazarbayev, who for over three decades has been the major political force in the country, to let go of the reins of power.  

“Most important is the anti-oligarchic discourse of the protest, the young breaking with the authorities, the ‘old man should go,’” said Arkady Dubnov, a Moscow-based political analyst who focuses on central Asia. 

President Tokayev sought to appease protesters by imposing price caps on motor fuels for the next six months and accepting his government’s resignation, while he also declared a state of emergency in and around Almaty, the capital Nur-Sultan and the oil-rich Mangystau region. 

The declaration allows Tokayev to impose a curfew, ban protests, and restrict internet access to quell the rare show of dissent in the tightly controlled nation, which is central Asia’s biggest oil producer.  

The instability on Russia’s southern border will be a test for President Vladimir Putin, who is currently involved in high-stakes negotiations with the U.S. and European Union over Ukraine. Putin has been building up Russia’s troop presence near Ukraine in what the West has said may be preparation for an invasion. Putin has said he has no current plans to invade, and presented a list of demands that includes the cessation of NATO’s military expansion eastward. 

“We are following the events in our fraternal, neighboring country,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, calling for a peaceful resolution and an end to the protests. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was an internal issue for Kazakhstan.  

The tenge strengthened 0.3% to 433.69 per dollar as the market closed in Almaty, while the benchmark stock index fell 3%. Yields on Kazakhstan’s dollar bonds due in July 2045 rose to 4.07%, the highest since May 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Saving Kazakhstan 

The Kremlin has regularly condemned street protests in former Soviet states, labeling them attempts by the West to use “color revolutions” to overthrow legitimate governments.  

Russia is facing “strategic instability on both flanks and it can’t afford to get distracted,” Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote on Facebook. “Just as Russia was encroaching on Ukraine, suddenly there are protests across Kazakhstan, which might need saving.” 

Restraining inflation “will become the primary issue” for the new government and its head, Tokayev told a cabinet meeting Wednesday. 

Like other countries, Kazakhstan has seen inflation soar and its wealth gap widen during the coronavirus pandemic. Consumer price growth jumped to 8.7% in November, exceeding the central bank’s 6% target. 

The country of 19 million people has struggled with domestic fuel supplies amid an increase in prices globally that made exports more appealing. Kazakhstan produces about 258,200 barrels of oil a day.  

The president told the government to regulate prices of motor fuels for 180 days, as well as some food staples, and ordered it to draft a law on personal bankruptcy. Earlier he agreed to lower the price of liquefied petroleum gas to 50 tenge ($0.11) a liter in the Mangystau region, after its price jumped from 60 tenge to 120 tenge a liter at the start of the year following a government attempt to move to market pricing. 

Kazakhstan Fuel Protests Leave Tengiz Operations Unaffected 

Workers at the Chevron Corp.-led Tengiz oil venture in the Mangystau region are continuing to participate in demonstrations, but operations haven’t been affected, the project operator said Wednesday. 

The last time unrest led to a state of emergency in Kazakhstan was in 2011. Those protests, which also started in the Mangystau region, were over oil worker wages and led to at least 14 deaths.