>President Tokayev says that he is the chairman of security council from now, instead of Nazarbayev
This is a huge deal. Conventional wisdom was that Nazarbayev, an unchallenged strongman for almost 30 years, only gave up the day-to-day duties of running the country to a younger sycophant but retained the ability to make "higher-order" decisions via his chairmanship of the security council - one of the models which Putin might follow as well, since he cannot ever simply retire.
This either means Nazarbayev doesn't want to be associated with the fall of Tokayev and will attempt to feign conflict with him to retain power in case shit goes south, or perhaps Tokayev just used the situation to perform a "forced retirement" coup against Nazarbayev.
Nazarbayev is 81 years old. It doesn't seem likely he'll emerge as the new ruler, even with Russian backing. ...but he might lend legitimacy to any new leader the Russians try to muscle in.
I didn't know. Interesting. The news coverage of Kazakhstan is bordering on nothing in my part of the world. Other than covering his resignation, I don't think I have read anything other than the renaming of Astana.
It's also unclear (judging from my twitter feed and a few liveblogs I follow) where Nazarbayev is currently located (and what he thinks about this mess).
So does anyone have a recap of this chain of events?
From the last time I heard about this, it sounded like he was bullied into selling his shares to one of Putin's buddies, and stepping down. Then he said he would like to stay in Russia, now he's fleeing?
I read the defense minister resigned in a deal negotiated by Lukashenko, and charges dropped against Prigozhin
That’s an absolute win, for Prigozhin, since that was the original goal
this internal issue has nothing to do with anyone outside of that region
thats a pretty big shakeup. “I dont like this guy and there is no political process to remove him so I brought in my private army, the President fleed and he resigned in 10 hours”
Is it? My understanding is that he completely peaced out of Russia shortly after Putin came to power and has been uninvolved in Russian affairs for ~15 years.
He is largely irrelevant now. He was significantly popular, but there is a combination of:
1. Many of his most fervent followers fleeing the country in February or September 2022.
2. His team being useless and consisting of people of very questionable loyalty (the question remains why he let them all in), and in many cases under their own brands.
3. Overall switch from the anti-corruption discourse towards different set of topics, such as war, etc - where he does not have much relevance.
4. Him being AFK (not to blame him for that).
5. His organization FBK now resides abroad, burning grant money and not doing anything useful for Russian residents.
Yep. Pavel Durov was forced out by various Kremlin connected folk for daring to stand up to the FSB and the Kremlin. He also went public about their unlawful requests. He then fled Russia.
Here's another thing to blow your mind: Grobachev was the inly Russian leader in history that resigned himself quietly, and then lived his life as a normal person.
In all of Russian history.
You could argue that Medvedev did, too, but this increasingly deranged puppet is sort of back in politics now.
Indeed, what he did by stepping down peacefully was highly unusual for a politician in his circumstances. It was like a miracle. And now we're seeing a more typical behavior from the successor of his successor.
It is too bad that in his later years he kinda regretted it, and kept saying "I should have kept going until the end". Perhaps it is natural to regret past decisions wondering if an alternative decision might have led to a better outcome. Hope that before he died he realized that had he pursued that alternative path he'd end up like Putin.
In summary -- Mr. Gorbachev was one of the most decent politicians and upstanding people in general that ever lived.
I remember some proclaiming that his resignation was nothing but an act...
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