Kazakhs overwhelmingly voted for constitutional changes in a referendum after deadly unrest ended founder and former Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s three-decade grip on Central Asia’s richest country, the Kazakh Central Election Commission said yesterday.
“The referendum can be considered validated,” Kazakh Central Election Commission Chairman Nurlan Abdirov said, citing preliminary results that 77 percent of voters had backed the move.
The commission reported a turnout of more than 68 percent in Sunday’s referendum.
Photo: Reuters
The January bloodshed, which grew out of peaceful protests over a spike in fuel prices, left more than 230 people dead and prompted authorities to call in troops from a Russia-led security bloc.
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.
Tokayev, 69, described the snap referendum as a shift from “super-presidential” rule.
However, the absence of special privileges for 81-year-old Nazarbayev and his relatives is the most eye-catching change to the country’s constitution.
Prior to January’s crisis, Tokayev was widely seen as ruling in the shadow of Nazarbayev and his super-rich relatives.
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.
The new constitution is to exclude that status. Another amendment would prevent relatives of the president from holding government positions — a clear nod to the influence of Nazarbayev’s family and in-laws.
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.
Protests stirred in the oil-rich west over a New Year fuel price hike, but it was Almaty — 2,000km away — that became the epicenter of armed clashes, looting and arson.
Nur-Sultan, which was called Astana prior to 2019, remained largely untouched.
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