FEB. 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Until last Friday, Imangali Tasmagabtov had a sparkling CV. He was considered the consummate Kazakh insider and the man with a hotline to the president. If Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakh president since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, wanted something done, he turned to Tasmagabetov, his trusted lieutenant.
The urbane Tasmagambetov had been the Kazakh PM between 2002 and 2003; mayor of Almaty between 2004 and 2008; mayor of Astana between 2008 and 2014; defence minister from 2014 until 2016 and then a deputy PM until Feb. 3 2017. In each one of these sensitive positions, Nazarbayev personally appointed Tasmagambetov.
In Kazakhstan’s myopic politics, Tasmagambetov had even been talked of as a president-in-waiting and, if he had been given the top job, this would have come as no major surprise as his career has closely tracked that of Nazarbayev.
Now, followers of Kazakhstan’s politics will have to think again. Tasmagambetov will not be the next Kazakh president. That was made clear on Friday.
Instead, he will move to Moscow as the Kazakh ambassador to Russia, a diplomatic exile that will undermine his powerbase and take him away from the cauldron of Kazakhstan’s Astana-based politics.
It is amanoeuvre that has served Nazarbayev well. He has dispatched other powerful figures to embassies where they have been forced to watch the main action from the sidelines.
Perhaps Tasmagambetov’s error was to become too powerful and too popular. The 60-year-old had a high profile, bigger
than almost all other Kazakh politicians because of his tenureship of both the Almaty and Astana mayoral positions. He was also considered by ordinary people in Kazakhstan to be one of the most “Kazakh” of the elite, a major advantage in a country grappling with its newfound nationalism. He was popular and considered a man who got stuff done.
Kazakh politics will move on without Tasmagambetov. For now. But he is an ambitious man, born into a humble household in western Kazakhstan who still retains a sizable support-base. Don’t write off a comeback for the new Kazakh ambassador to Moscow.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)