Page 65 - bne magazine February 2022_20220208

bne February 2022 Kazakhstan I Special focus I 65
Kazakhstan, as the state retains total control over the information flow and most of the independent media outlets are currently shut down.
Who are the protesters?
If the protests are not being organised by international terrorists then who, if anyone, is behind the unrest?
The first demonstrations appeared in the western Mangystau region on January
1 after a reform saw fuel prices double overnight and protesters were entirely comprised of disgruntled workers.
Despite the efforts of local authorities
to meet demonstrators’ demands,
the protests quickly spread across the country and morphed into a more general anti-government protest, fuelled by the frustration of poor, malcontent working-class citizens, tired of the country’s corruption and autocracy.
After thirty years of autocratic rule under the former Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh opposition movement has been effectively crushed and plays little role in the country. What unrest there has been is largely driven by socio- economic issues and is largely spontaneous. And during the crises of the last year
life has become much harder. Inflation
rose to 8.9% in 2021, up from 7.5% in 2020, and as food prices have soared, which make up a much larger share of the poor’s shopping basket, this inflation has disproportionately hurt those
at the bottom of the social pyramid. Many Kazakhs have been forced to borrow to make ends meet and the population's debt load increased in 2020 by 12.3%, according to a report by the US think-tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow.
Moreover, thanks in part to the pandemic and little financial support from the government, unemployment rose by 12% last year, particularly affecting young, male, internal migrants from poorer regions. On top of all that, the cost of living in Kazakhstan’s remote western regions is higher than in the more populated south-eastern regions as the price of most of the consumer goods is driven up by the high cost of transport, making Mangystau more prone to protests than the rest of the country.
Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, quickly became the epicentre of last week’s violence. bne IntelliNews’ correspondent in Almaty reports that the most active centre of protests was in the working-class districts in the southern part of the city. Tensions
have also been fuelled by rising youth unemployment after the population nearly doubled in the last 20 years, partly due to the number of internal migrants seeking work. Almaty’s crime rate has risen alongside the population growth, with registered crimes quadrupling between 2007-2017, according to Carnegie.
Although most of the city’s protesters were peaceful, there were reports of fights between security forces and
the crowds. With so many young, frustrated men, the radical escalation of the protests was likely down to “the sheer number of angry young men with little to lose”, rather than any foreign influence, Carnegie reports.
A government investigation is underway to determine the cause of the riots, the results of which will no doubt be in their favour. In the meantime, Tokayev promises a “reform plan” and solutions to the country’s “social and economic problems”. However, the outcome of the protests will likely be further persecution and restrictions.
In addition to the “terrorists”, Tokayev has his sights set on “human rights defenders”, “activists”, and the “so-called free media”, all of whom he calls “instigators” in the protests.
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