Translated material
Cleaned up the family's dirty laundry
Nazarbayev kicked his eldest son-in-law out of politics
In Kazakhstan, a serious crisis is growing in relations between financial and industrial groups, one of which is close to President Nazarbayev. Last Saturday, the head of state dismissed the ambassador to Austria and the OSCE, the husband of his eldest daughter Dariga, Rakhat Aliyev. Moreover, this was done on the proposal of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, claiming that “Aliev R.M. accused of committing a crime,” and after his son-in-law announced his intention to run for president in five years.The external impetus for these hitherto latent clan contradictions to come to the surface was the change in the Constitution of Kazakhstan, which allowed Nursultan Nazarbayev to run for the presidency an unlimited number of times . But the main events related to the crisis began back in January of this year, when an acute conflict arose around one of the largest Kazakh banks - Nurbank. One of its leaders accused the bank's largest shareholder, Rakhat Aliyev, who then served as First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, of kidnapping top managers of Nurbank and racketeering. A few days later, 22-year-old Nurali Aliyev, the son of Rakhat Aliyev, was introduced to the bank’s board of directors. Then the financial police, controlled by the president’s son-in-law, opened a criminal case against two leaders of Nurbank, but they disappeared without a trace.
In early February, the president removed Rakhat Aliyev from the post of first deputy head of the Foreign Ministry and sent him as ambassador to Austria and, concurrently, to the OSCE (for the second time in the last five years). And in early May, after a meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Nazarbayev instructed this department to conduct a thorough investigation of the high-profile criminal case related to Nurbank - “regardless of positions and position.” According to Rakhat Aliyev, the mayor of Almaty and ex-prime minister Imangali Tasmagambetov, a cousin of one of the leaders of Nurbank and also a business partner of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Baurzhan Mukhamedzhanov, inspired the actions directed against him.
Security forces controlled by opponents exchange blows . The Almaty police detain several people from Rakhat Aliyev’s entourage, and the financial police loyal to him respond by arresting the people of the mayor of Almaty Tasmagambetov.
On May 18, Rakhat Aliyev, through the newspaper “Caravan” controlled by him, accused the mayor of Almaty and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of corruption and illegal business. And three days later, Nazarbayev signs amendments giving him the right to become practically president for life. And then events began to grow like a snowball.
At first, academician from medicine Mukhtar Aliyev, one of the leaders of the pro-presidential Nur Otan party, father of Rakhat Aliyev, called this step “the agony of the regime” of Nazarbayev. He was supported by the former head of the National Security Committee Alnur Musayev, close to the Aliyev clan. The authorities suspend for three months “for violating the Law on Language” the activities of the KTK television channel and the Karavan newspaper, part of the media empire controlled by the president’s eldest daughter and her husband. Following this, a criminal case is initiated against Rakhat Aliyev on charges of kidnapping and extortion. A search is being conducted at his father's house. They are looking for Rakhat Aliyev himself. But he manages to leave Kazakhstan. Then the agency Kazakhstan Today, controlled by him, reports that operatives from the Almaty police “broke into the house of the Majilis deputy of the parliament Dariga Nazarbayeva and the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Austria Rakhat Aliyev... When seizing the house there were no witnesses present, which is a gross violation of the law... Violated parliamentary immunity of D. Nazarbayeva.”
On behalf of the press service of the Kazakh Embassy in Vienna, it is reported that Rakhat Aliyev will hold a press conference in the Austrian capital on May 24, but this message is disavowed the next day. And on May 26, a verbose statement from Rakhat Aliyev himself appeared on the Internet. Judging by its wording, it was compiled by the Kazakh ambassador to Austria himself. “I must admit,” he reports, “my disagreements with President Nazarbayev have been brewing for a long time.” The author declares “the right to his own vision of the future of his country.” It turned out that Rakhat Aliyev “formed his own idea of the political situation in the country while working in international organizations and communicating with leading politicians in European and other countries.” Having acquired this rich experience abroad, Rakhat Aliyev came to the conclusion that “the natural (!) development of my political career was the decision to run for president in the next presidential elections in 2012.” “Several months ago I told Nursultan Abishevich about this,” says the author.
Rakhat Aliyev, obviously, thus wanted to lift the curtain on the secret reasons why Nazarbayev decided not to limit himself in the possibility of running for president further: only to block the path to power for himself, Rakhat Mukhtarovich Aliyev. His statement ends pathetically: “I am convinced that the future will be ours. And not for you, Mr. President for life.” And further: “I have only one request - stop the torture of people, Mr. President, it is in your power.”
However, watching the confrontation between the president and his son-in-law and daughter, one must closely monitor one of the main characters in Kazakh politics, the mayor of Almaty Imangali Tasmagambetov. It is unlikely that his recent, according to Vremya Novostei, refusal of Nazarbayev’s offer to take the vacant seat of Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the United States was hardly accidental. The ambitious mayor of the southern capital organized a holiday called “Fountain Day” on May 25 in his city near the house where the former Soviet leader of the country and still popular there, Dinmukhamed Kunaev, lived. The mayor talked a lot about Kunayev’s role in the development of Kazakhstan and never mentioned Nazarbayev...