Anyone trying to make an objective assessment of Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev invariably runs into a big problem – his insipidity as a politician. Despite the successful career in state service, he has nothing special to offer. In the Soviet official biographies (obituaries), people like that used to be called “the devoted sons of the Party and citizens”.

This is exactly who Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev is, a “devoted son”. Albeit not of the “Party and citizens” but of Nursultan Nazarbayev.

This was probably the reason why he was chosen as Nazarbayev’s successor as the President of the country. Perhaps, having been burnt by his numerous allies starting from former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin and the only Vice President in the Kazakh history Erik Asanbayev, Nursultan Nazarbayev chose not to take any risks. As a result, the man who has become the second President of the Republic of Kazakhstan is -

• controllable,
• extra-cautious if not cowardly,
• equidistant from the key elite clans and groups of influence,
• without friends on the top of the Kazakh elite,
• not in possession of a big fortune,
• incapable of establishing relationships in a swift fashion, building schemes and launching processes,
• not a natural leader completely devoid of charisma. 

These qualities albeit very valuable and useful for the Leader of the Nation’s devoted ally, had expectedly turned into their antithesis when the necessity to present Tokayev as the new head of the Republic of Kazakhstan arose. And there is no chance that he can suddenly change and come out of the “shell” in which he has been living for at least forty years (since the start of his career at the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

In other words, hoping that, tomorrow, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev suddenly turns into a charismatic person capable of leading the people and the state apparatus into a brighter future is futile in principle. For this reason, one cannot but smile at Akorda’s attempts to “mold” Tokayev into a real state leader in the eyes of the people.

Nursultan Nazarbayev’s anomaly developed political intuition, artistic abilities, skills to be cynical and hypocritical, ability to speak with everyone in the manner that is expected and to clearly understand the motives for people’s actions are the qualities that are as far from Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev as the Moon. Therefore, we believe that the second President of the Republic of Kazakhstan is fated to remain a pale shadow of Nazarbayev not only while the latter is still alive but after his passing as well.

This, of course, does not mean that Kazsym-Zhomart Tokayev will remain devoted to Nazarbayev till the last breath. Rather, it is going to be the other way around. As soon as the Leader of the Nation passes away, Tokayev, under the pressure of his environment, is likely to begin revisioning the decisions of the First President if only to satisfy the ambitions of a weak man that he is as well as to redevise the spheres of influence in the economy and the business in order to assist someone in obtaining as much property as possible in exchange for that someone’s support.

It is during this period that Tokayev will perhaps reveal his true qualities. For, on one hand, he will receive a chance to come out of Nazarbayev’s shadow. On the other hand, one way or another, he will be forced to make decisions annihilating and negating what has already been created, established, approved under the leadership of his predecessor. He will have to do so under the pressure of both his environment and the external and internal factors.

Presently, however, Akorda’s political engineers, literally before our eyes, have to invent a myth about Tokayev using the opinions of the people who, at any given point, have studied, cooperated and worked with him. These opinions, by their design, do not require a written confirmation.

We have also run into the problem of assessing this “man in a shell”. As we recall, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev publicly revealed himself and showed emotions as a statesman only once, in the fall of 2001, when a large group of Kazakh officials and entrepreneurs requested Nazarbayev to cut short his then omnipotent son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev and to conduct the democratic political reforms in the country.

Since a great deal of information on this perhaps deepest and most long-standing internal political crisis in Kazakhstan can be found on the internet, we will limit ourselves to simply stating this fact.

It seems the then abnormal nervousness and emotional excitement of Tokayev were caused, among other things, by the fact that he felt extremely uncomfortable in the chair of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Against his predecessors Akezhan Kazhegeldin and Nurlan Balgimbayev, he indeed looked extremely pale and seemed practically a dilettante in the sphere of economic management. This was understood by everyone, and certain members of the Government did not even try to conceal their opinion about this fact. So Tokayev was not respected in the state apparatus. And, in our opinion, when the leaders of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan put forward their resonant political demands to the future Leader of the Nation, Tokayev simply lost his grip.

Let us give you a large quote from an article published in the Kazakh newspaper Respublika in September 2001 that presents yet another assessment of the then Prime Minister of the country.

“Every Vegetable Has Its Season

The talks of Kasymzhomart Tokayev’s dismissal have been going on for a long time, one day dying down, another day gathering volume. Today, however, everything seems to be speaking in favor of the fact that the change of the Cabinet is just around the corner.

As we know, the ability to predict future developments and prepare for them in advance are the strong suits of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This ability includes the forming the Kazakh Government in the way that best corresponds to the new times and challenges.

Let us recall our recent history. When it became clear that the collapse of the industrial and agricultural production in the country could not be stopped since the state did not have the necessary financial resources, the management and the access to the global market, Sergey Tereschenko’s Government was replaced by that of Akezhan Kazhegeldin.

He was not an expert in the field of state governance or macroeconomics which is something even his supporters will probably agree with. However, in contrast to others, he possessed a political bravery and entrepreneurial spirit that, as it turned out later, border-lined adventurism.

Only such a man – not tied by the common past with the Party and business elite as well as the managerial corpus was able to carry out the privatization of Kazakhstan’s biggest industrial complexes in such a short period of time despite the resistance from the Kazakh society.

This enabled the Kazakh leaders to attract big foreign capital - in other words, investments, the Western-style management and trade links. Without this, the economic growth of the past three years would not have been possible since it was the extracting industry of the country that made the biggest contribution to it and gave the boost to the remaining sectors of the economy.

Later, it became necessary to stop the privatization program because it was starting to spin out of control, to retain the state control over the strategic infrastructural complexes such as railroads, national electrical power networks, pipeline transportation and so on and to start working on introducing the market mechanisms of management to the major sectors of the economy.

Then, Akezhan Kazhegeldin’s Government was replaced with that of Nurlan Balgimbayev. The new government was primarily preoccupied with helping individual sectors and setting a course for the strengthening of the state’s role in the economy. As for the new head of the Cabinet, he was a manager experienced in leading the sector ministry and a national holding company.

When the Asian economic crisis broke, the Government consisted of such independent and eager ministers that the head of the state had to help the Prime Minister to put them on their heels on several occasions. But what was tolerable during the economic crisis of 1998-1999 was no longer suitable for the new times and, at the very start of the economic upsurge that followed, Nurlan Balgimbayev’s Government was replaced with that of Kasymzhomart Tokayev.

As former Minister of Foreign Affairs, he could represent the Republic of Kazakhstan in its new capacity (as a candidate for joining the “Asian tigers”) and demonstrate the stability of the state’s investment support policy to foreign investors as well as to implement the task of introducing Kazakhstan to the global community and obtaining the political leadership in the region better than anyone.

Now the external environment is changing again. Giving his annual speech addressed to the people of Kazakhstan at the Houses’ joint session at the end of September, Nursultan Nazarbayev warned that, for the resource suppliers, the global market environment is changing for the worse and the country’s trade surpluses are decreasing. Obviously, this will be followed by a reconfiguration of the Government according to the new situation and challenges”.

Let us repeat once again: we believe it was Tokayev’s understanding of his own inferiority as Prime Minister that provoked the abnormal emotiveness of his famous public address to Nursultan Nazarbayev made on November 20, 2001, when he requested to dismiss the members of the Government that dared to join the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan and put forward their political demands. We have no doubt that the address itself was sanctioned by Nazarbayev who needed a cause for firing the rebels, but the way it was made will remain a part of the Kazakh history forever.

On the other hand, researching the archives, we have found yet another case when Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev allowed himself to get agitated in public. In April 2000, having returned from the trip around the country, he talked tough about certain unnamed governors equating their abilities to those of a kangaroo and calling them “separatists”. After this, he gave a set-down to the members of his Cabinet for not carrying out his orders and decided to ask the head of the state to punish the guilty ministers. All this happened amid the rumors that, a little earlier in February, Tokayev asked Nazarbayev to grant him permission to resign on his own will which the head of the state did not grant him.

However, even if during the discussion of Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev’s personality in the Kazakh information space, they will recall other instances of his emotive and even aggressive behavior, defining him as “a man in a shell” we believe ties in best with his description as the second President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a statesman and a politician.

As for his own self-esteem, it was revealed in a private letter that user Kassymzhomart Tokayev sent from tokaev1@mail.ru to an addressee called Timur at tkt@list.ru on March 21, 2011.

(This letter, together with other correspondence of Kazakh officials and civic leaders became publicly available on the internet several years ago through the efforts of unknown hackers – kz.expert).

After an emotional and sentimental description of his meeting with the boss (Nazarbayev) before his departure for Switzerland (to work at the UN), Tokayev makes the following confession.

“…I said that, already back in 2003, I warned against the danger coming from Ablyazov. They didn’t listen. I also said that, in all these years, I’ve never taken anyone’s side, haven’t made any friends and therefore I am leaving regretful of one thing only – that I won’t be able to interact with him, not even occasionally”.

Another quality of Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev that not too many people know of is his abnormal suspiciousness. To confirm this, we will recall a case that once shocked those who witnessed it.

Once, while visiting an elite fitness club (already after his return from Switzerland), the then Speaker of the Senate of the Kazakh Parliament suddenly began taking phone videos of the people exercising in the club thus demonstrating to them that, if something happens, he will always be able to find them. In our opinion, the cause of the suspiciousness is obvious – it lies in his own weakness and his realization of it.

The reverse side of this weakness or, as one can say, its result lies in his abnormal arrogance towards those placed below him on the state vertical. However, since all of this is hidden behind his diplomatic self-control, these qualities are known only to those who have dealt with him personally.

In view of everything that has been said, certain questions naturally arise.

FIRST. Will Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev be able to come out of his “shell” once he becomes the head of the state?

We strongly believe that he will not. And not only because of his age (he just turned 66 a couple of days ago) but also due to the fact that now he has found himself at the epicenter of power and the number of people with whom he must interact on a daily basis and who, one way or another, can put the moral and psychological pressure on him has grown exponentially. And after Nursultan Nazarbayev’s passing it will only grow further. Normally, when placed in such circumstances, people like Tokayev tend to shut down even more since this is the only survival mode accessible to them.

SECOND. Will Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev be able to become Nursultan Nazarbayev’s successor not only de-jure but de-facto as well?

We believe the answer to this question is also negative.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, undoubtedly, possesses the natural charisma, intelligence and psychological flexibility which have enabled him to have an outstanding career in the USSR and then to rule the independent Republic of Kazakhstan for thirty years. And even after resigning from the presidential post, he remains the arbiter of the fate of the country and its people. Two major circumstances contribute to it.

• First, the Leader of the Nation was born in 1940 and, for the people of that generation, it took all their effort and power to survive and achieve success in life.
• Second, he received a great schooling inside the Soviet Party-state apparatus where the competition was just as fierce as the requirements for the professional skills of state managers were at the time.

Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev was born in 1953 and belongs to the generation that came after. These people, too, had to work hard, however, the living conditions of a son of, first, a high-rank law-enforcement officer and then a famous mystery writer born in Almaty definitely excelled those of many of his contemporaries. The fact that he was able to enter a prestigious Moscow college, finish it and become a professional diplomat means that he was not without abilities. At the same time, the fact that, in all the 16 years that he had spent at the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he had only managed to obtain the position of the embassy counsellor in China (not a bad thing yet by no means a striking achievement) shows that he did not stand out in a crowd and was just like everybody else. Nothing more.

THIRD. Can Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev, with his lack of the natural leadership qualities, charisma and profound experience in managing the economy and governing the society, become a more efficient leader than his predecessor was?

Once again, we believe the answer is negative. If only because Nursultan Nazarbayev possesses a certain political intuition that enables him to make unobvious decisions and to take risks by appointing certain people to the key governmental posts at the right time and by trusting them (to a certain degree, of course). This is evident from the liftoffs of Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Nurlan Balgimbayev, Mukhtar Ablyazov, Karim Masimov and quite a few other Nazarbayev’s appointees including former president of National Atomic Company Kazatomprom Mukhtar Dzhakishev.

Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev does not have this kind of political intuition, otherwise, he would have succeeded in the way Imangali Tasmagambetov, Umirzak Shukeyev and a dozen of other Nazarbayev’s allies had. Not only had they made an exceptional state service career but turned their close relatives into billionaires and multi-billionaires not to mention formed and taken the lead of some rather influential clans.

FOURTH. Will Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev be able not only to execute the authorities of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan but, in fact, perform the President’s main duty – to ensure the internal political stability including balancing out the elite clans and the groups of influence?

Unfortunately, yet again, the answer is likely to be negative. For the law-enforcement block, the main instrument of sustaining the political stability and preserving the balance between the elite clans and the groups of influence, Nazarbayev has reserved for himself. And it is not at all certain that, after Nazarbayev’s passing, Tokayev will manage to get it.

All this forces us to conclude that the second President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev, is but a transitional figure whose task is not so much to take the country’s supreme power into his own hands and to retain it as to hand it over to someone else.

Of course, the transitional period may drag down, and for different reasons at that.

Moreover, we allow for the possibility that Tokayev will manage to hold on to the presidential chair up until 2024 – 2025 when the next regular presidential elections are to take place, that he may participate in them and even win. But this will be possible only in the case he is supported by the most influential clan in the country (the one led by Nazarbayev today), complies with the rules of the game established by the Leader of the Nation and if the socio-economic situation in the country does not deteriorate in a significant way.

Then perhaps Tokayev will be able to repeat the political fate of Leonid Brezhnev, a second-rate Party bureaucrat devoid of any kind of special abilities other than knowing how to keep a balance between the groups of influence, who, at the same time, seemed like a suitable choice to all or almost all those in power since he gave them an opportunity to live the best they could given the timeframe.

This is the best-case scenario.

In the worst-case scenario, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev will repeat the fate of Konstantin Chernenko, Leonid Brezhnev’s loyal associate, whose rule was the shortest one on record and who, today, is forgotten by even the most zealous opponents of the socialist system and the USSR.