On April 8, 2020, the official website of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan published the anticipated address of Nursultan Nazarbayev to his fellow citizens. Speaking from the point of view of preserving the current political stability (not to mention the trust to the state and state agencies), it would be better if the article never saw the light of day.

Why do we think so? Because, today, Nursultan Nazarbayev has become one of the weakest elements of the Kazakh authoritarian political system and the «super-presidential» vertical.

Of course, he has done so involuntarily but due to the objective factors — his age and the state of health as well as the decay of the system itself. The thing is that the construction of such (authoritarian) political system is always based on the concentration of supreme power in the hands of a single person (or a small group of people) that, being the decision-making centre, starts to personify this power as time goes by. And automatically becomes one of its crucial elements (fundamentals). However, given critical conditions, such systems always demand that the leader must be front and centre and must be noticeable. And this is exactly what Kazakhstan is lacking today.

Acting head of the state Kossym-Jomart Tokayev, with all his efforts to demonstrate presidential activity, is considered by society rather as a temporary substitute than Nazarbayev’s successor. Due to a number of reasons (including his biography and the years-long secondariness in the «Leader of the Nation’s» immediate circle), he is incapable of becoming the next Leader of the Nation while the current one is alive. As a result, what, in the past, had been strengthening the authoritarian system (we are talking not about the belief in Nazarbayev but rather about the fact that he had become an acquired habit in society), now is starting to weaken and even sabotage the system.

Be the way, it is for this reason that Akorda and the Library’s political opponents, first of all, the Leader of the Nation’s personal enemy Mukhtar Ablyazov, are concentrating their information attacks on the subject of the health and legal capacity of Nursultan Nazarbayev. And the natural and the only rational answer to these attacks should be a demonstration of the Leader of the Nation himself, as always, tall in the saddle.

But alas, instead of Nazarbayev’s video address to the nation, the people were given hurriedly prepared two-step combination: the meeting with Prime Minister Askar Marin and the article exuberantly titled «When We Stand United, We Are Invincible».

We see no point in analysing and commenting what Nursultan Nazarbayev said at his meeting with Mamin on April 7 as well as what was written in his name in the article of April 8. Especially since other experts have already done so, for instance, Kazakh political expert Dosym Satpayev.

«It is interesting to know whether those who participated in preparing the First President’s article understood that its title „When We Stand United, We Are Invincible“ closely resembles a song by Chilean poet Sergio Ortega „El Pueblo unido James sera vencido“ (When a nation is one, it is invincible). And if they did understand it, then they knew that it was the hymn of the fighters for democracy and against dictatorship first in Chile (after the 1973 military coup) and they knew that later it became the slogan of the democracy fighters all around the world?

If they did not know, it looks comical.

If they knew, they had clearly set the author up. Or he had set himself up. For this is a clear call for the nation to unite in its fight for its rights.

Half of the article itself consists of the third dimension where 01 has been living for quite some time now — with his mythical economic successes, the liquidation of the oil dependancy, the diversification of the economy, the third technological modernisation, developed medical care, etc. The second part of the article represents the sermon-style profound reflections on love, friendship, discipline and perseverance. And all this is mixed up with a number of citations and sayings which is aimed to strengthen the author’s unconvincing words, especially those on the fairytale-like unity of the people and the state. Although the words „when we are united, we are invincible“ cannot be applied to even the ruling class inside which new ruptures and conflicts are ripening. In short, the article is business as usual. Firing into emptiness, nothing more».

Against the backdrop of the main result of the last two-month events that lies in the fact that Kazakhstan has lost the «Leader of the Nation» while he is still alive, all these are but innuendoes unworthy of mentioning.

The only thing that, in this instance, deserves attention is the question — why the current immediate circle of the main resident of the Library has made such a mistake?

Did they not understand how important it is amid the total crisis?

Or have they started selling out their boss in the anticipation of the big power redivision and, therefore, the spheres of influence in the «super-presidential» vertical and big business?