NUR-SULTAN -- Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has pledged constitutional reforms to limit the powers of his office two months after deadly public protests in the oil rich nation prompted him to call in troops from Russia and other countries in the region to restore order.
Speaking on March 16 in his first major address to the Central Asian nation since the unrest, which was sparked in part by discontent over the ruling class and left at least 230 dead with thousands more arrested, Toqaev blamed the violence on "top officials" who were upset with his "modernization of the state" and fomented anger by spreading lies.
"It is well known that the monopolization of political and economic activity was the main reason for the January events," he said.
"The old system of administration oriented toward the super concentration of power has lost its effectiveness and is unable to bring unity to civil society," he added.
Protests in the remote town of Zhanaozen in early January over a sudden fuel-price hike quickly spread across Kazakhstan and led to violent clashes in the country's largest city, Almaty, and elsewhere.
However, much of the public anger in the unrest was also directed at former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who resigned in 2019 but retained large political influence in the tightly controlled nation with almost limitless powers.
Many of his family members and associates were handed control of lucrative businesses while ordinary citizens failed to share in the country's vast energy wealth.
Since the protests, Nazarbaev and a growing number of those around him have lost their official posts.
Toqaev said in his address that he will introduce further reforms "to increase the effectiveness of the parliament" and simplify the process for registering new political parties.
He said that the country's leaders should not lead political parties and that he would reestablish a constitutional court dismantled under Nazabaev.
Toqaev also said that Nazabaev's highly unpopular merger of three administrative regions in the country's east, center, and southeast would be reversed, with the regions being given new names.
"The important lesson of the tragic January events is the fact that the concentration of power in the hands of the top official in the state wrongly increased the influence of individuals close to him and that of financial and oligarchic groups," he said.
"They considered the state as their own backyard. Nepotism in any country inevitably leads to negative cadre selection and becomes the perfect soil for corruption to flourish," Toqaev said.
Though Kazakhstan often touts its democratic reforms, especially in comparison to many other countries in Central Asia, it has been chided by rights groups for failing to enact the deep reforms needed, a point highlighted by the protests.
Toqaev said he and his government "accepted" that law enforcement had used torture against some of those detained during and after the protests, but pledged that cases would be investigated because they "contradict the principles of any democratic society."
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