“Vote for renewal,” urge giant billboards as Kazakhstan heads into a parliamentary election on August 23rd. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president, calls this a turning point in the building of a “new Kazakhstan”—shorthand for a political reset that began after civil unrest demanding political change had left at least 238 people dead in 2022.
That was a reference to his predecessor, who monopolised power for three decades before resigning in 2019. The pair ruled in tandem until the 2022 unrest, which left Mr Nazarbayev sidelined and Mr Tokayev scrambling to dissociate himself from his former mentor. He rolled back some presidential powers in 2022, but clawed some back again in the new constitution, adopted by referendum against a backdrop of arrests of critics.
His predecessor suffered the same fate, and it is not just politicians who are targeted. Reporters and social-media personalities have also been variously imprisoned, slapped with travel bans and barred from doing journalism on flimsy-looking charges. In a blatantly political case, a satirical post poking fun at the president recently landed a YouTuber behind bars. Mr Nazarbayev’s designated successor was Mr Tokayev.
Pluralism is thriving in Kazakhstan, so Mr Tokayev said recently—only days after Amangeldy Dzhakhin, an opposition leader, had been jailed for seven years on spurious charges of extremism. This election follows the adoption of a new constitution, which Mr Tokayev has depicted as Kazakhstan “casting off the super-presidential form of rule”.
