In Kazakhstan, the chief military agency is not the first thing to consider in forming power balances. The reasons are plentiful starting with the fact that the staff size of the country’s military forces is half as big as the staff size of the law-enforcement agencies while the general officer personnel has never tried to perform an independent role in shaping the domestic and foreign policy.
Apart from that, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defence is chaired by civilians even if they do acquire military ranks later and wear the military uniform.
Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that, is necessity arises, President Kossym-Jomart Tokayev (as the Commander-In-Chief) and his predecessor at the presidential post Nursultan Nazarbayev (as the lifelong Chairman of Kazakhstan’s Security Council) will employ the military forces as their final argument in the fight against their political opponents.
And the fact that the latter are not yet visible on the Kazakh political horizon does not mean that the odds of that happening equal zero.
The thing is that the country’s officer personnel including the relatively sizeable generalship is also divided into clans and groups of influence each of which, oftentimes, tries to solve their problems on the backs of their competitors, the state budget and the country in general. In view of which, it would be interesting to see who is represented in the Ministry of Defence’ executive staff and how.
Since this topic is one the least discussed ones in the Kazakh social and political press, we will limit ourselves to talking only about one of the deputies of Kazakhstan’s Minister of Defence Lieutenant General Nurlan Ermekbayev (who, by the way, is a Nazarbayev appointee). This deputy is Daryn Tuyakov.
Photo: twitter.com/daryntuyakov
Our interest towards this man stems from information provided by our insiders. He is supposed to be petty tight with the NSC Chief Karim Masimov and his appointment in October 2020 had been lobbied by no other than the latter.
At this point, we cannot say why Karim Masimov needs his own henchman in the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps this person is to replace Ermekbayev as the head of the agency when the time comes. Or he is there to simply represent Masimov’s interests in the agency.
The thing is that, even though the NSC Chief is still trying to keep out of the Kazakh media’s line of sight (which is not hard for him to do for the obvious reasons), he continues to be actively involved in the country’s internal political developments. This fact can be confirmed even by sociological surveys according to which Karim Masimov belongs to the first five most influential politicians and statesmen (albeit his rating has dropped a little since he stopped being the second most important person after Kossym-Jomart Tokayev).
We at KZ.expert believe that the NSC Chief simply continues employing the tactics of inconspicuously promoting his people to the key posts in the state apparatus and quasi-governmental structures.
According to our insiders, it is to Masimov that the aforementioned Daryn Tuyakov owes his successful career at Kazakhtelecom JSC: through Aygul Nuriyeva, the former used to own a big chunk of this company’s shares and had his say in the corporate personnel decisions.
If we consider information provided by another source that the NSC Chief has formed a tactical alliance with Kayrat Satybaldy, the current owner of this portfolio, a very curious pattern is starting to emerge.
This pattern is rather alarming for the other elite clans and groups of influence. Especially considering that, with all their wealth and power, Dariga Nazarbayeva, Aliya Nazarbayeva, Timur and Dinara Kulibayevs cannot rely on support of the police and the military.
In conclusion, we would like to point out that Karim Masimov has been and still is one of the Kazakh elite’s most influential figures that, at the same time, is obscured from the public view.
Once the Respublika Internet-portal wrote a whole series of publications mainly describing Masimov’s consumer habits, tourist adventures and valuable purchases. However, this publications did not touch upon his unofficial ties with China, his personal fortune and many other things that usually cause indignation and annoyance among Kazakh citizens.
In view of this, we expect the press to soon release articles on this subject. Masimov increasing his presence in the domestic policy matters cannot but stir up a negative response on the part of his enemies and ill-wishers.
Cover photo from Respublika archives
