Now, against the background of the floods that hit vast swathes of Western and Northern Kazakhstan and caused popular discontent with the authorities who proved unprepared in some places to cope with the element of water, Kazakhstani pro-regime propagandists are talking about how ‘Old Kazakhstan’ and the former Kazakh President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, have been trying to discredit the current Kazakh President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

New Kazakhstan’, as Tokayev billed it, is a concept that is meant to imply the period of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s rule after the events of January 2022. It has been and is used as the antithesis of ‘Old Kazakhstan’, which, as it was originally intended, should be associated with the period of Nazarbayev’s rule and those people who allegedly are longing for a return to the way things were under the first President of Kazakhstan. Tokayev’s supporters’ words, taken at face value, suggest that the latter ones are trying to discredit President Tokayev and regain the positions lost in recent years.

Yet both in Kazakhstan and abroad, very few people are willing to believe it. Because, first, there hardly seems to be any difference between what was then, under the presidency of Nursultan Nazarbayev, and what there is today, under the presidency of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. And if even there is one, it’s highly unlikely to be in the latter’s favor. When Nazarbayev took over Kazakhstan, it was the fourth largest of the fifteen........

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