NURSULTAN (Reuters) – Samat Abish, nephew of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was dismissed from his post as deputy chairman of the national security committee on Monday, the Kazakh presidential office said.
This new eviction is the latest in a series of dismissals of relatives of the former president in positions of responsibility, which have taken place in recent days in the wake of the deadly riots which have shaken Kazakhstan in recent weeks.
The Kazakh sovereign wealth fund announced in a statement on Saturday that two sons-in-law of the former president had been dismissed from the positions they held, respectively at the head of the public oil transport company KazTransOil and the national gas pipeline operator. QazaqGaz.
In addition, the oligarch Timour Kulibaïev, one of the sons-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbayev, meanwhile resigned on Monday from his post as president of the main employers’ lobby in the country, Atameken, without explaining his decision.
Demonstrations rocking the country since the beginning of the year, initially triggered by the announcement of a rise in gasoline prices, have turned into a challenge to the influence still wielded by former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, 81 years, and his entourage.
The latter, who ruled the former Soviet republic with an iron fist until 2019, has not appeared in public since the start of the protest, unprecedented since the independence of Kazakhstan in 1991.
His successor to the presidency, Kassim-Jomart Tokayev – who had renamed Astana, the Kazakh capital, Nursultan in honor of his mentor – assumed the position of chairman of the national security committee during these unrest, effectively ending to their co-governance.
He then appointed a new vice-chairman of the committee, without ousting Samat Abish at first.
Kassim-Jomart Tokaev also sacked the former head of the national security committee, Karim Massimov, last week, as well as two of his deputies, Marat Osipov and Daulet Ergozhin, who were arrested on suspicion of treason.
Last week, Kassim-Jomart Tokayev said those who had amassed fortunes during the three decades that Nursultan Nazarbayev spent at the helm of the country now had to share their wealth.
At least 225 people have been killed in violent protests that have rocked Kazakhstan since the start of the year, leading President Kassim-Jomart Tokayev to call in the Russian military to try to restore calm to the country .
(Report Olzhas Auyezov, French version Myriam Rivet, edited by Blandine Hénault)