1990–2019: Presidency of Nursultan Nazarbayev

Under the presidency of Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakh politics continued to follow the moderate line of Kunayev. Nazarbayev’s leadership was initially restrained, relative to the leadership of neighbouring Central Asian states, but over time it grew increasingly authoritarian.

In 1994 the government decided to gradually transfer the national capital from Almaty, located in the country’s southeast, to Aqmola, located in the north-centre, in the following years. The capital was officially moved in 1997, and in May 1998 Aqmola was renamed Astana. At the beginning of the 21st century, the rapid transformation of the capital was led by a dramatic construction boom directed by Nazarbayev and fueled largely by the country’s growing petroleum revenues.

Nazarbayev was reelected to the presidency in 1999 and again in 2005. During his rule, parties who opposed the president and his administration remained weak, partly because of the maneuvering and manipulation of the ruling party. Although a reform package that included a reduction in the length of the presidential term and an expansion of parliamentary power was passed in 2007, a constitutional amendment was passed alongside it that rendered Nazarbayev personally exempt from the standard two-term limit on the presidency. In 2010 the Kazakh parliament approved plans for a referendum for 2011 that would cancel the next two rounds of presidential elections, effectively extending Nazarbayev’s term until at least 2020. However, the planned referendum was rejected by Kazakhstan’s constitutional court in January 2011. Nazarbayev accepted the court’s ruling and called for early presidential elections. In April 2011, running against token opposition, Nazarbayev was elected to another term as president, winning more than 95 percent of the vote. A subsequent report by Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers stated that restrictions on political activity in Kazakhstan and the absence of a viable opposition candidate for president had left voters without a meaningful choice in the election.

A rare challenge to the authority of the government occurred in May 2011 when oil workers in the town of Zhanaozen went on strike over pay and working conditions, occupying the town square. The strike continued until police opened fire during a riot on December 16, killing 17 people and injuring dozens more. The incident led to a wider crackdown on dissent that saw a number of opposition activists jailed.

The next presidential election was held in April 2015, wherein Nazarbayev won nearly 98 percent of the vote. In September of that year, he appointed his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, as deputy prime minister. A year later, in September 2016, he appointed her to the Senate, increasing speculation that she was being groomed to take over the presidency.

Other events indicated that Nazarbayev was preparing the stage for a smooth transition of power as his tenure drew to an end. In 2017 he advanced a set of constitutional amendments that would give more power to the parliament and the cabinet. In February 2019 he sacked the cabinet and appointed a new prime minister to carry out a program to improve living standards. Many observers believed that the move was meant to lay the groundwork for an upcoming election campaign. But Nazarbayev resigned from the presidency on March 19, saying that he wanted to facilitate the rise of a new generation to lead the nation. He retained several key policy-making positions but gradually relinquished them in the years that followed.

From 2019: Presidency of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

Observing constitutional protocol, the incumbent Senate speaker, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, was to serve as acting president for the remainder of the term, and a presidential election was due to be held in early 2020 but was later moved up to June 2019. When the presidential election came in June 2019, Tokayev was elected to the presidency in a sweeping victory.

Tokayev initially supported the lofty stature of Nazarbayev and his family. On March 20, 2019, his first day in office, he changed the name of the capital city from Astana to Nur-Sultan in honour of Nazarbayev (a change reverted in September 2022). He also promoted Nazarbayev’s daughter Dariga to the post of Senate speaker, making her first in the line of succession upon the vacancy of the presidency, though she was removed from the post in May 2020 following allegations abroad that she had been involved in an embezzlement scheme.

Early in his presidency, Tokayev attempted reforms that were intended to liberalize Kazakhstan by easing restrictions on protests and political opposition. Detentions of protesters continued, however, and the 2021 parliamentary elections, boycotted by the opposition for remaining too restrictive, were Kazakhstan’s first elections to be uncontested by opposition parties.

At the start of 2022 the government ended price caps on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as part of an ongoing plan to liberalize the energy market and end fuel shortages. However, the move backfired, as the price of LPG doubled. Protests broke out in Zhanaozen on January 2 and quickly spread across the country; in Almaty, demonstrators stormed and set fire to government buildings. Although the price caps were reinstated and the prime minister resigned, the protesters demanded broader changes, citing the lack of democratic representation in the government’s decision-making processes as the underlying cause of their grievance. On January 6, forces from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) were deployed in Kazakhstan to respond to the unrest, marking the first time that the Russian-led military alliance had been called upon to intervene in a member state.

With the protests quickly quelled, CSTO forces began withdrawing the following week, and Tokayev embarked on an effort to reform the political system and establish a clean break with Nazarbayev. In June voters approved more than 30 constitutional amendments in a landslide referendum. The amendments, which Tokayev described as merely the “first step” in reform, removed certain aspects of presidential oversight and created obstacles to nepotism in the executive branch. In September, seeking to shore up support for further reform, he called for early presidential and legislative elections. With little time for the opposition to mobilize and compete in presidential elections set for November, Tokayev won a seven-year term with more than 80 percent of the vote.