>> Concessions are likely from the Kazakh government as it works hard to contain the fallout from the death in police custody of an opposition activist, writes James Kilner.

MARCH 3 2020 (The Bulletin) — As The Bulletin was going to press, a court in the northeastern Kazakh city of Semey ordered the release of Mukhtar Dzhakishev, perhaps the country’s most high-profile political prisoner.

Dzhakishev has been in prison since 2009, sent down because of various financial crimes. He had been a high flyer within the Kazakh elite, at the time of his arrest he was head of the nuclear agency Kazatomptom, although the government of Nursultan Nazarbayev always doubted his loyalty.

Many people, including foreign governments, suspected that the real reason that Dzhakishev had been imprisoned was because he was close to Mukhtar Ablyazov, the billionaire owner of BTA Bank who fled to Moscow and then London in 2009 and set himself up as an opposition leader.

The theory goes that Nazarbayev couldn’t get to Ablyazov, and still hasn’t, but he could take out some of his key Kazakhstan-based associates, including Dzhakishev.

So why release Dzhakishev now? Afterall, Ablyazov is still acting as an opposition leader from his base in Paris and only last year a court rejected Dzhakishev’s appeal for his early release on health grounds.

The answer could well lie with the death in police custody of opposition activist Dulat Agadil. In life, Agadil had not been a particularly serious threat to the government but in death, he had become a powerful force for the government’s opponents to rally around. He died in police custody on Feb. 25 in murky circumstances. The government was quick to rush out a statement saying that Agadil had died of an underlying heart condition and not from police mistreatment. Not many ordinary people believe the government and the opposition had been quick to start organising demonstrations. The one on Saturday was snuffed out by the security forces but more were promised.

Perhaps the release of Dzhakishev was a carrot that Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev believed was needed to pacify opposition momentum. It has allowed him to show himself as a moderate and even-handed president. 

It may also only be the beginning of the concessions that the Kazakh government is prepared to give out to contain the fallout from the death of Agadil. Whether it works or not, The Bulletin will be there to report and analyse in full.

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— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020