APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev reappointed Karim Massimov as his PM after officially being sworn in as Kazakhstan’s leader. As a formality, the PM and all the ministers have to resign after a presidential election.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Revenue at Kazmunaigas EP, the London-listed unit of Kazakhstan’s state energy company, fell by 47% last year because of the collapse in oil prices, it said at its annual results. Importantly, too, salaries increased by 10% at Kazmunaigas after last year’s devaluation of the Kazakh tenge.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Vladimir Shkolnik, Kazakhstan’s energy minister, said the Caspian Sea oil project Kashagan would resume pumping oil in December 2016. This estimation is a few weeks earlier than Western energy companies linked to the project have suggested. Oil from Kashagan was suspended in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nurzhan Subkhanberdin resigned as director of Kazkommertsbank after selling a 7.2% stake in the bank, one of the largest in Kazakhstan, to Kenes Rakishev, the son-in-law of the Kazakh defence minister.
Although Mr Subkhanberdin still owns 37.8% of Kazkommertsbank his ousting from the board effectively completes the takeover of Kazkommertsbank by businessmen
loyal to President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Earlier this year Mr Subkhanberdin was replaced as chairman of Kazkommertsbank, a position he had held since setting it up in 1991.
The London-based Mr Subkhanberdin was viewed with suspicion. He had openly sup- ported opponents of Mr Nazarbayev in the early 2000s.
Last year, Kazkommertsbank had been cajoled into a merger with BTA Bank, which the government rescued from bankruptcy in 2009. The merger imposed BTA Bank’s large portfolio of bad loans onto Kazkommertsbank, hitting its profits. In 2014, Kazkommertsbank said on April 30, profit dropped by 55%.
The deal is another major boon for Mr Rakishev too. He now owns 23.34% of the bank.
Mr Rakishev, 35, is closely linked to the Kazakh elite. Analysts have said the Kazakh elite use Mr Rakishev to buy companies and to hold shares in businesses.
He is married to the daughter of the minister of defence Imangali Tasmagambetov, one of President Nazarbayev’s closest associates.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
ASTANA/Kazakhstan, APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Keen to build his everlasting legacy, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev has create a museum in Astana to furnish his image as the Leader of the Nation.
A few days before the 74-year-old Nazarbayev won his fifth presidential election on April 26, The Conway Bulletin had a look around the National Museum, a futuristic building of marble and glass set at the heart of the new city.
It is the largest museum in Central Asia and was opened on July 6 last year, the 17th anniversary of Astana’s designation as Kazakhstan’s capital, a crown it took from Almaty in the south.
As if to underline its superiority over the far more louche Almaty, the new National Museum in Astana has taken the best from the old National Museum. All the national treasures are here from a huge 1-tonne bürkit, the national eagle to the Altyn Adam, so-called golden man, symbol of the nomadic warring times of the Kazakh civilisation.
Two grandiose light shows are shown every hour, with videos featuring the President. His words are engraved at each corner. “One people, one civilization, one future,” read one.
A couple of hundred visitors on a Sunday afternoon felt barely visible in this vast museum. Directing staff pointed the way, ensuring that tourists and locals both experience Nazarbayev’s own reading of Kazakhstan’s history.
In the Astana Hall, countless photos of the president giving speeches and inaugurating buildings are accompanied by Nazarbayev’s own drawings that served as a guidelines for Astana’s landmark monuments, such as the Baiterek tower, first sketched on a tissue.
The question that everybody wants answering now is when is he going to stand aside and allow another president to run the country. Even when he does though, there is little doubt that Nazarbayev, as the Leader of the Nation, will be standing and watching not too far behind the scenes.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh media reported a 19% drop in sales of US dollars, euros and roubles at foreign exchange points in March compared to February, suggesting a slowdown of the near panicked drive by ordinary Kazakhs to sell out of tenge when they thought a devaluation was imminent.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015
APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of small stall owners protested in Almaty after a fire ripped through a trading centre. The protest was one of the biggest acts of social discontent in Kazakhstan this year. There have been a number of suspect fires in trading centres in Almaty.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 27 2015(The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Atyrau in western Kazakhstan sentenced an unnamed 27-year-old man to jail for three years for fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, media reported. Radio Free Europe said this was the second case this year.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
>>Real question facing Kazakhstan is what happens next
APRIL 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev won a fifth presidential election in Kazakhstan with a 97.7% share of the vote.
Western election monitors complained that there had been little, or no, real opposition. The only two alternative candidates to Mr Nazarbayev both supported his re-election.
Not that this seemed to bother Mr Nazarbayev.
“I’m sorry that these numbers may seem inadmissible to super- democratic countries. But there is nothing I can do about them. Had I interfered, that would have been anti-democratic,” he said according to reports.
The key now — for interested observers of Kazakhstan’s business, political and social scenes — is to watch out for what happens next. Mr Nazarbayev and his close band of elites called an early election to impose his authority over the country at an increasingly difficult period. The economy is under pressure from a drop in oil prices and a sharp fall in Russia’s economic vitality. This has generated pressure on the Kazakh tenge to devalue,
<<Election was a prelude to more important decisions <<
With a successful election, now may be the opportune time for Kazakhstan to devalue its currency without triggering social upheaval.
And then, of course, there is the question of succession. At 74-years-old, Mr Nazarbayev’s years in office are probably numbered. He has yet to anoint a successor. Now, though, may be his chance.
The 2015 presidential election is most likely a prelude to more important decisions facing Kazakhstan.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov will travel to Astana to meet with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev soon, Kazakh media reported. This is important because Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are partnering up on a rail project linking Central Asia with Iran.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)