Y. Atamkulov: 90% Of Kazakhstan’s (Senior) Civil Servants With Whom I Had Talks In Astana, Root For Putin – OpEd
It’s been almost a month since the 24th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was held in the Kazakh capital city, Astana. Now few people recall it in Kazakhstan itself even in ordinary conversations.
It’s a different matter overseas. Some Western media still publish pieces in which the topic of this summit is used as a prelude to a story about the achievements of Kazakhstan in the international arena, as well as about the successes of the country’s ruling regime in promoting both foreign and domestic policies. In short, they’re about how the political and economic reforms promised by President Tokayev in the 2022 presidential election campaign are successfully being carried out. It would seem that it remains for the Kazakhstani only to rejoice.
However, it is not necessary to hurry up with optimistic conclusions. Not everything here is as simple as looks from the outside.
It is also necessary to note that the views of domestic and foreign authors/speakers on the progress and prospects of economic and political reforms in Kazakhstan under Kassym-Jomart Tokayev vary quite widely. The conclusion begs one – the closer such an observer is to the reality of Kazakhstan, the more likely he or she will have a skeptical attitude toward the Kazakh president’s commitment to reforms. Conversely, the further one is from the Central Asian country, the more he or she tends to take an optimistic view of the prospects for economic and political reforms in Kazakhstan.
Now, let this author just illustrate this with examples from Western and Kazakhstani sources.
The National Interest’s Janusz Bugajski, in an article entitled “Kazakhstan’s Multilateral Heft”, said: “While the SCO is widely viewed as Beijing and Moscow’s attempt to pull members away from the West, Kazakhstan used its membership and leadership in the SCO and other intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) to consolidate Central Asian resilience to outside pressures… it protects its national interests through a multi-vector policy pioneered thirty years ago after its independence from the Soviet Union. This is accomplished by not aligning too closely with any single state, balancing its international connections, and engaging with numerous multilateral groups, including the SCO, the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE), the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
As a founding member of the SCO, Kazakhstan has tabled various initiatives, including an agreement on settling border issues and accords to combat terrorism. The current SCO agenda promotes cultural cooperation, environmental protection, and digital connectivity. Kazakhstan also pursues the “Nurly Zhol” infrastructure development program, which involves extensive railroad and highway construction to advance regional trade and investment, thus promoting greater economic integration in Central Asia”.
With a few exceptions, the above piece reads just like some editorial in a Kazakhstani staunchly pro-government newspaper. In brief, things in and around Kazakhstan are presented there in the way the Kazakh ruling regime would probably like them to be seen by national and foreign observers. Meanwhile, many in Kazakhstan itself, including even some representatives of the country’s elite classes, have a completely different perspective on the situation in and around their country.
Here is what Yerlan Atamkulov, ex-president of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy [Kazakhstan Railways] national company, said in a recent interview with Abay Live channel: “90 percent of those [Kazakh] representatives of public administration and civil service with whom I had heart-to-heart talks in Astana, root for [Vladimir] Putin”. In that interview, Yerlan Atamkulov said some other things, too.
According to his vision, the situation in and around Kazakhstan seems to be completely different than the one described by Janusz Bugajski.
