LAST UPDATE: 16:19
Kazakhstan’s President Qasim-Yomart Tokayev has announced that he will take over the helm of former Security Council leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, vowing to respond with “maximum toughness” to the protests.
In a televised address, Tokayev said he would immediately take over the helm of the Security Council, a role through which Nazarbayev continued to wield considerable influence following his unexpected resignation in 2019.
Tokayev did not name Nazarbayev. The 81-year-old former president has not appeared or spoken publicly since the beginning of the protests, which earlier today made Tokayev accept the resignation of his government.
Reuters notes that the move appears to signal the final ouster of Nazarbayev, a former Communist Party leader who ruled as undisputed president for almost three decades after Kazakhstan gained its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is unclear whether this will satisfy the protesters, some of whom were heard shouting “Old man out!”, A traditional anti-Nazarbayev slogan.
Tokayev had earlier ousted Nazarbayev’s nephew from his second position in the State Security Committee, the successor to the Soviet KGB.
Earlier, the police chief of Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, said “extremists and radicals” had attacked and beaten 500 civilians and looted hundreds of businesses.
Police, National Guard and army units are taking part in the security operation in the city, police chief Kanat Taimerdenov added in a statement issued today, the second day of clashes between protesters and security forces.
Today, after the midday group of thousands of protesters, he raided the City Hall of Almaty, managing to penetrate into the interior of the building, despite the cranberry-flash bombers and the tear gas hiring against them the police, according to a journalist of AFP.
Reuters had earlier reported, citing images uploaded live on Instagram by a blogger in Kazakhstan, that a fire was raging in the office of the mayor of Almaty and that shots were heard nearby.
Men in police uniforms were seen laying their helmets and shields in a pile and joining protesters. “They are coming with us!” A woman shouted as she hugged another protester, AFP reported.
Furious riots erupted on Sunday following rising liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices in the western city of Janaozen, and then spread to the large regional city of Aktau and then Almaty, leading to the resignation of the government earlier today. country.
Kazakhstan’s President Qasim-Tomart Tokayev accepted the government’s resignation overnight and also declared a state of emergency in the Mangistau region, where Janaozen is where the protests began, and the Almaty region.
SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
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Source From: Capital
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