Dariga Nazarbayeva: What do we know about the new speaker of the Senate of Kazakhstan
Dmitry Kurkin
Dariga Nazarbayeva, the eldest daughter of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who for nearly thirty years ruled Kazakhstan and resigned as president this week, has been elected chairman of the Kazakh Senate. Although the news of this remained in the shadow of the proposal to rename Astana to Nursultan, put forward by the new president of the country Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev - and in the shadow of the avalanche of memes that followed him - she reports something important about the balance of political forces in Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev is considered one of the likely candidates for the 2020 presidential election. And her operational - and unanimous - election as the head of the upper chamber of the Kazakh parliament shows that the scenario in which she inherits the power of Elbasy (the national leader — her 78-year-old father remains) is quite likely.
Except for the ceremonial biography of Nazarbayeva, not so much is known, despite the fact that she remains one of the most influential figures in Kazakhstan - and the richest (in May 2013, the local Forbes branch estimated her personal fortune at almost $ 600 million). While nepotism can be traced in the country's political system — among the likely successors of Nazarbayev, political scientists also call his son-in-law Timur Kulibayev (Dinara Nazarbayeva’s husband) and nephew Samat Abish (now the first deputy chairman of the national security committee), leadership of the country. In fact, according to observers, the issue of the transfer of power in Kazakhstan was seriously concerned only in September 2016, after the death of another permanent post-Soviet leader, Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
In 2003, Dariga Nazarbayeva created the Asar Party and thus expressed her absolute support for the course proclaimed by her father. But even this was not enough when her husband, businessman and politician Rakhat Aliyev was suspected of disloyalty: in 2007 he was charged with abduction of top managers of Nurbank. The Austrian police detained Aliyev, but the court refused to extradite him, and since then he, in fact, has become one of the main Kazakh dissidents. In his book The Godfather, released in 2009, he accused Nazarbayev of corruption, and in 2014 he surrendered to the Austrian authorities and allegedly promised to provide the court with evidence of large-scale corruption among Kazakh officials. Aliyev did not live to trial: in February he was found dead in a prison cell. His death was recognized as suicide.
In the leaked documents, she was called the only owner of an offshore company registered in the Virgin Islands.
Shortly after the scandal, the Asar party was swallowed up by another loyal Elbasy structure, the Nur Otan party, and Nazarbayeva either fell into disfavor for five years or consciously eliminated from public life (her divorce from Aliyev was formalized in 2007 — Aliyev himself claimed that this happened without his participation). She restarted her political career in 2012, after her election to the Majilis, the lower chamber of the Kazakh parliament.
In 2016, Dariga Nazarbayeva together with her other relatives was mentioned in the “Panama dossier”: in leaked documents, she was called the only owner of an offshore company registered in the Virgin Islands. In addition, it was claimed that she and her son Nurali Aliyev could own property in London, the cost of which is estimated at about 183 million pounds (curiously, this is Baker Street, where the Sherlock Holmes House Museum is located). This information is contrary to the statements of the Kazakh authorities, who regularly urged the national business not to withdraw capital from offshore companies, but they are quite consistent with the assessment of the scale of corruption in the country: in the rating of Transparency International, Kazakhstan ranked 124th out of 180.
In addition to a career in politics and business, Nazarbayeva has one more: she loves to sing and at one time often appeared on national television screens as a singer. However, she probably will have to forget about this hobby in the coming months. Her activity in the new post — and the will of her father — will determine whether she will lead the country or repeat the fate of Gulnara Karimova, who, after her father’s death, was found guilty of economic crimes and sentenced to five years in prison.
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