Nazarbayev: the politics of wisdom

Real information: from a young age a habit was formed: to be always the first. In 1984-1989, at  the age of 44 -, the youngest head of the government of the union republic. Nazarbayev was one of the brightest young people who rose to power on the wave of the policy of forming national cadres, which was carried out in all the republics of the USSR.

In the book “Without Right and Left”, published in 1991, Nazarbayev noted that his ancestors, whom he knew before the “seventh generation”, were not “blue” blood: “I am the son, grandson and great-grandson of shepherds”. The first president of a huge country (ninth in the world in terms of area - 2,724.9 thousand km²), which lost a quarter of its population due to the artificial famine of 1930-1933, as a result of which the Kazakh people became a minority in their land.

The first decrees: the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, where more than a million people became victims of tests, the rejection of the world's 4th arsenal of nuclear weapons. After the collapse of the USSR, in 4 years the volume of industrial production in Kazakhstan decreased by half, agriculture - by 30%, most of the large enterprises stopped. Before Nazarbayev left, GDP grew by 15 times. The principle is declared in education: graduates must be fluent in Kazakh, Russian and English. In 1993, the educational program "Bolshak" was launched: according to a competition, school graduates were sent to study abroad on state scholarships (more than 15 thousand specialists were trained). In December 2012, a program for the development of Kazakhstan until 2050 was developed, the goal is to become one of the 30 most developed countries.

The country adheres to a strict policy of religious tolerance, maintaining peace between the Muslim majority population and the large ethnic Russian and Ukrainian minorities. The population as of 01.06.21 was almost 19 million people. In addition to Kazakhs, there are Russians (23.7%), Ukrainians (2.1%), Uzbeks (2.9%), Tatars (1.3%), Uighurs (1.4%), Germans (1.1%) ), as well as representatives of other nationalities (4.4%).

With the latest changes in the Constitution, the country has become a presidential-parliamentary one. A phased transition of the Kazakh language to the Latin script is planned for integration into the world space. Is there a lot of political power for 30 years? It is up to the people of Kazakhstan to decide, but the foreign policy activity of Nazarbayev is unequivocally positively assessed by international experts. First of all, international mediation and the creation of multilateral organizations.

The multi-vector foreign policy of Kazakhstan (in sequence Russia, India, China, USA, EU, Asian countries) has become a model for all Central Asian states (CA). Nazarbayev has forged strong relationships with the United States, Russia and China without becoming hostage to the conflicting interests of these powers.

President Putin views Nazarbayev as his key ally and Kazakhstan as Russia's largest trading partner. In October 2020, Kazakhstan and Russia updated the bilateral agreement on military cooperation, which, compared to the previous one, expands the range of interaction between the armed forces of the two countries. In 2021, Russian Foreign Minister S. Lavrov and Speaker of the Federation Council V. Matvienko visited Kazakhstan. At the same time, both included in their statements during their visits provisions on the countries' respect for the independence, territorial integrity and statehood of each other, terminating the campaign of territorial claims against Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is an integral part of China's Belt and Road project as it is geographically linked to European markets. India was one of the first countries to recognize Kazakhstan's independence, and Nazarbayev responded by making New Delhi the site of his first foreign visit outside the CIS in 1992. Over the years, India and Kazakhstan have formed a strategic alliance. In 2013, it was proposed to build a hydrocarbon pipeline connecting five countries to help connect the two countries.

Immediately after gaining independence, Nazarbayev initiated the idea of ​​the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building in Asia (CICA), which became a pan-Asian dialogue platform for discussing regional problems and developing practical cooperation. The headquarters is located in Almaty, and Nazarbayev has been nominated to the post of head of the Council of Wise Men (created to develop recommendations for intensifying cooperation on various vectors of strengthening confidence-building measures). Kazakhstan became the first post-Soviet state to lead the OSCE in 2010 (in this post the crisis was resolved and tensions in neighboring Kyrgyzstan were weakened), was elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (2017-2019).

However, the first initiative of Kazakhstan in the field of international mediation took place at the end of 1991, when Nazarbayev and B. Yeltsin tried to resolve the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the past decade, these efforts have been renewed in the context of increased geopolitical competition in Eurasia.

Separately, the consistent policy of Kazakhstan in the field of nuclear diplomacy is noteworthy: in 2013, two summits on the Iranian nuclear program were held in Almaty, which directly paved the way for the Geneva talks and the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program.

Kazakhstan did a lot to reduce tensions between Russia and the West: in 2014, Nazarbayev sought to cool the contradictions between Russia and the West over Ukraine, played a role in establishing a dialogue between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, which ended in the Normandy format. In 2016, Nazarbayev played an active role in preventing the escalation of tensions between Turkey and Russia after a Russian military plane was shot down. As a result, Turkey and Russia accepted President Nazarbayev's offer to hold talks in Kazakhstan on the Syrian conflict. Astana hosted Russia, Turkey and Iran to prevent hostilities between these countries and find a common solution to the conflict in Syria.

Kazakhstan's mediation is focused on close countries, on those areas that affect the geopolitical stability of Eurasia, which is a determining factor for Kazakhstan's own security. As a result, Kazakhstan improves its international image and status of a neutral intermediary.

Most political elites in the Turkic world regard Nazarbayev as an aksakal, and this is not just a tribute to the age of the Kazakh leader. Focusing on building the nation of the Kazakh people and state building of Kazakhstan, he expanded the scope of history, calling on Kazakh historians to rewrite the history of Kazakhstan based on a common Turkic identity, initiated the creation of the International Turkic Academy in Astana, almost a century later, he again renamed the South Kazakhstan region into Turkestan.

He raised the issue of Turkey's membership in the EurAsEC, supported the status of this state as a dialogue partner in the SCO. In October 2009, a strategic partnership was signed with Turkey, the organization of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking countries was created.

Nazarbayev has done a great job to ensure a smooth transition of power. He started planning the transition a few years ago. In 2017, Nazarbayev initiated constitutional changes, diminishing the power of the president, and in July 2018, expanding the role of the Security Council he heads, giving him control over all security forces and foreign policy. Journalists write that Kazakhstan has adopted a version of the so-called “president’s mentor” model, copied from Singapore during the times of Lee Kwan Y. It is believed that Nazarbayev and other leaders of Central Asia consider Singapore a good example of development.

Since 2010, the status of Elbasy (leader or founder of the modern Kazakh nation and state), the first President of the Republic of Kazakhstan has been officially recognized.

  Since 2010, the status of Elbasy (leader or founder of the modern Kazakh nation and state), the first President of the Republic of Kazakhstan has been officially recognized.

For a long time, among the country's problems were relations with neighbors in the region, which noticeably smoothed out after the change of power in Uzbekistan and the start of the cooperation program with the United States - "5 + 1". In Kazakhstan itself, the confrontation deepens, according to Kazakh experts, between “nagyz” and “shala” Kazakhs (literally “good”, “true” and “semi” Kazakhs: between Kazakhs who speak and do not speak their native language, whose identities differ significantly ...

Another problem is related to the socio-cultural, political and economic concept of the integration of the post-Soviet space, which was Eurasianism, the architect of which was Nazarbayev. Strikingly, it is Russia that cannot finally determine its geopolitical orientation between the West and the East, although recent political events are pushing it towards Eurasianism. “In search of its new place in the world, after the collapse of the USSR, Russia tried on the prospect of becoming a part of the Euro-Atlantic community, and when it did not meet political recognition on an equal basis in the West, it positioned itself in the Asia-Pacific region as a Euro-Pacific power,” Russian analysts write ... This is seen as an inconsistency in the foreign policy concept of relations between Russia and the Central Asian countries. The transformation of the Asian region into the center of world politics, the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the beginning of the Taliban rule, the growth of influence in the PRC region and a number of other factors in the very near future will force the political players of this space to determine their strategic preferences. Depending on this process, the foreign policy activity of the Central Asian countries will be built, the locomotive of which, undoubtedly, is Kazakhstan, provided that it is supported by Uzbekistan.

52% of the population of Kazakhstan was born during the reign of N. Nazarbayev, who, according to Western analysts, built a "soft" authoritarian regime. Today Nazarbayev will strive to ensure that all development problems of Kazakhstan are resolved as long as he is able to control the country.

Nazarbayev successfully lifted the country out of the post-Soviet collapse in essence without major upheavals and ethnic conflicts. Meanwhile, economic crises, socio-economic problems and ethnic conflicts were common in post-Soviet states during that period. It should be admitted that N. Nazarbayev saved his country from the dashing 1990s. How will it be this time, when it is again necessary to solve the socio-economic problems of the poor, continue a multi-vector foreign policy based on a fragile balancing of relations with Russia, China, the United States, Turkey and Europe, as well as with neighboring countries, clarify the role in the initiative " One belt, one way "and .... ???

Speaker of the Senate Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who was sworn in as Acting President on March 20, 2019, passed the path of Prime Minister, Speaker of the Senate, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations. Nazarbayev leaves to his successor a country that is still building a nation and a state. Although Nursultan Nazarbayev is fully in power, his era is coming to an end. Therefore, it is especially interesting what the Patriarch will do in the remaining time.

Ali Abasov