The “fun” part of politics in Kazakhstan is made of gossip and rumors. The latest is perhaps the most surprising. For the past couple of weeks, Kazakhstan’s social media has been buzzing with rumors of Dariga Nazarbayeva becoming the country’s vice president.
The March 15 constitutional referendum, among other things, introduced a presidentially appointed vice president position.
A career politician, Dariga Nazarbayeva is the eldest daughter of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who left power in 2019 after three decades at the helm. Once Kassym-Jomart Tokayev took power, a slow process of “de-Nazarbayevification” kicked off. The pace of this process accelerated after Qandy Qantar, the violent repression of urban protests in January 2022. At the time, elites still close to Nazarbayev were blamed for stoking the protest and orchestrating an attempted coup.
Within this context, Dariga was already on her way out of politics. She had been promoted to speaker of the Senate after Tokayev moved into the presidency, but she was dismissed in May 2020, just days before her birthday. Since Dariga was served that sour birthday present, she has been essentially absent from Kazakhstan’s political scene. She served as an MP for the ruling Nur Otan party between 2021-2022, but with far less flair compared to the previous years. In 2022, Nur Otan rebranded as Amanat.
In January 2022, while the country was in a state of emergency, with army patrols in the streets of Almaty and limited internet access, political analyst Marat Shibutov surprisingly named her among the few people who would enjoy the support of the people of Kazakhstan.
Dariga resigned from her post just weeks later and disappeared from the public eye.
Shibutov saw his own rise to fame in political circles by pledging allegiance to the new course of the Tokayev government. He was selected to become a member of the National Kurultai – an advisory institution – and later a member of the commissions for the parliamentary and constitutional reforms.
But how did the latest rumor of Dariga becoming a vice president emerge?
On May 7, Dariga’s birthday, a new political party was founded. Adilet (“Justice” in its Kazakh translation) was established as hurriedly as the institutional reforms of the previous months were adopted. Adilet seems to embody the spirit of the new constitution. Its profile was boosted with the nomination of Aibek Dadebai, Tokayev’s former chief of staff, as its chairman.
Now, the forthcoming parliamentary elections will see Amanat, the ruling party, and Adilet, the new poster child, face off and possibly establish a dual power, while still both remaining loyal to Tokayev’s policies.
Some analysts, however, disagree. Andrei Chebotarev said in early May that the creation of Adilet reminded him of Dariga’s Asar Party back in the early 2000s. “There could be a hint of rivalry between the Amanat and Adilet, similar to the rivalry between [Nur] Otan and Asar,” Chebotarev told Kursiv.
Asar was created in 2003 with great ambitions for power, but it was eventually merged into the Nur Otan ruling party in 2006.
Once Dariga started being mentioned next to Adilet, however, the rumor mill started producing increasingly surprising predictions. And because of the presence of Shibutov among Adilet’s founders, people “connected the dots” and argued that this could be a play for her return to politics.
Pressed by media regarding this rumor, a number of politicians expressed negative views toward the idea.
“I believe Dariga Nursultanovna’s time has passed. She is, let’s just say, a rather toxic politician,” said Aidos Sarym, an MP with the ruling Amanat party.
“I absolutely do not believe she could become vice president or prime minister. I don’t know what would have to happen in the country for us all to suddenly change our minds and say, ‘Come on, Dariga Nursultanovna, come and set us straight.’ I honestly don’t see that happening,” Sarym told the press on May 20.
On the same day, MP Abzal Kuspan also said he did not consider Dariga’s return possible. “Honestly speaking, I don’t think she would be suited for the role [of vice president],” Kuspan said.
Despite the fact that the party was founded on Dariga’s birthday and a few other coincidences, it would be difficult to directly link her to Adilet, a new party that cited “law and order,” Tokayev’s main refrain, as its own key mantra. In the absence of more clarity from the side of the government about the institutional and political future of the country, however, rumors will continue to spread.
