(The Diplomat) As Kazakhstan undergoes its first power transition, the awakening of public politics is inevitable. It’s been a wild few months for Kazakh politics, starting with President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s resignation on March 19 and interim President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s decision a few weeks later to call for early presidential elections, now set for June 9. Since then, Kazakhstan has renamed its capital and seen a series of public protests, flashes of frustration with the political process and persisting socioeconomic inequalities.
To put the ongoing changes in context, The Diplomat spoke to Nargis Kassenova, currently a senior fellow in the Program on Central Asia at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Kassenova is also an associate professor at KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. […]
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