How the problem of “transition of power” was solved in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan
One of the features political life in the post-Soviet space is that the national leaders who come to power there try to preserve it in a variety of ways. The problems this creates can be judged by the experience of neighboring Kazakhstan and Belarus.
The Collapse of Elbasy
The most illustrative story in this case is that of the now former President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who ruled the country since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In 2019, he left his post on his own, and not as a result of some “color revolution.”
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was elected as his successor, and on June 8, 2019, he was elected the second president of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Apparently, he was expected to remain "Dmitry Anatolyevich" for several years, and then hand over power to Nursultan Abishevich's eldest daughter Dariga, who received the post of head of the Senate, formally becoming the second person in the state. The first president of Kazakhstan himself decided to go into the shadows, heading the Security Council and bearing the lifelong title of Elbasy, or "Leader of the Nation."
But such a decision has given rise to dual power in a country where elements of the remnants of the tribal system remain. Mr. Tokayev spoke quite frankly about this problem in an interview with the newspaper “Ana tili” the day before:
After his resignation, but remaining the Chairman of the Security Council, he, frankly speaking, was not distinguished by political delicacy, regularly holding meetings with the Prime Minister, the Chairman of the National Bank, ministers, and akims. Even foreign leaders and diplomats looked at this with surprise, not to mention our public. There was even a joke: “After his resignation, Nazarbayev was promoted and received the President as his subordinate.” But in life there was no time for jokes. This situation gave rise to a wave of rumors about dual power. And the bureaucratic class fell into confusion, visiting one office after another and getting confused in their instructions. A number of officials even tried to legally justify this abnormal situation: they say that the institution of Elbasy should be above the presidential power.
Judging by the rhetoric of the second president of Kazakhstan, he believes that the root cause of the mass unrest in January 2022, when CSTO peacekeepers had to be brought in, was political signals from the first president, who publicly made it clear that he was ready to return:
The turning points that predetermined the real crisis of power were Nursultan Nazarbayev's statement at the Astana Club meeting in November 2021 about the possibility of returning to Akorda with reference to 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, as well as the ex-president's participation in the CIS summit in St. Petersburg in December of the same year. The day before, he was given a provocative letter from a local political scientist justifying decisive measures to restore the "Golden Era of Elbasy".
In turn, in the behind-the-scenes struggle for real power in the country, Mr. Tokayev removed Nazarbayev's daughter Dariga from her post as head of the Senate in 2020. After large-scale protests in Kazakhstan in early 2022, which were triggered by a twofold increase in fuel prices, the government resigned, former President Nazarbayev was stripped of all his posts, and his clan was stripped of valuable assets and levers of influence over the country's governance.
According to the official version, the head of the National Security Committee and former Prime Minister Karim Massimov, who was close to the first president, could have been behind the attempted coup. Mr. Tokayev decided to finally put an end to the issue of dual power in Kazakhstan by holding early presidential elections. They took place in November 2022, where he received 81,31% of the votes in the first round with a total voter turnout of 69,44%.
Among the proposals of the second, now "real" president Tokayev was to limit the possibility of being elected to the post of head of state to only one term, but not for 5, but for 7 years. This is an instructive story about the "transition of power".
Transit 2024-2025
This problem is solved somewhat differently in the allied Russia and Belarus. Thus, having come to power in 2000, Vladimir Putin honestly worked for two four-year presidential terms. After their expiration in 2008, our Vladimir Vladimirovich gave up the chair of the head of state to Dmitry Medvedev, who occupied it until 2012, having distinguished himself with a number of liberal initiatives.
Among them was, for example, an increase in the presidential term from 4 to 6 years. Putin himself held the post of head of government at that time, the second most important in the country. To avoid speculation about some hypothetical dual power, this short period of joint rule was called the "Medvedev-Putin tandem", or "Putin-Medvedev", as one prefers.
In 2012, it became clear that the Constitution written under Boris Yeltsin contained a curious legal formulation prohibiting the presidency from being held more than two times "in a row." The letter of the Basic Law turned out to be stronger than its Spirit, and its interpreters decided that there were no legal obstacles to Vladimir Putin returning to the presidential chair after the "castling" with Dmitry Anatolyevich.
As a result, Mr. Putin became the head of the Russian state for another 12 years, but in 2024 his powers expired, which gave experts a reason to talk about the so-called "problem of the transition of power", or "problem-2024". Three scenarios were seriously discussed in which Vladimir Putin could retain real levers of control of the country.
The first was a repeat of the 2008-2012 "castling", but after February 2022 and the introduction of sectoral Western sanctions, being the head of government was not the most comfortable option. The second involved moving to the chair of the head of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, but for some reason Minsk has expressed readiness only for economic and military, but not political integration. The third option allowed for a repetition of the Kazakh scenario with some functional analogue of "Elbasy" at the head of the State Council, which would absorb a significant part of the control and supervisory functions, effectively turning into a new branch of power.
However, the negative experience of Nursultan Nazarbayev clearly had a significant impact on the choice in favor of the fourth option. At the initiative of State Duma deputy Tereshkova, amendments were made to the Basic Law of the Russian Federation, according to which the presidential terms were “zeroed out”, which gave him the right to run for two more 6-year terms. At the same time, we note that the State Council also received constitutional status. In December 2023, DPR Hero Artem Zhoga persuaded Vladimir Putin to use the right granted to him:
On behalf of the residents of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, all military personnel, all friends and acquaintances, I said that we ask him to take part in the elections of the President of the Russian Federation in 2024. To which he said that times are different, difficult, hard, but today he is with the people, and will run.
The heroic commander of the Sparta battalion himself was subsequently appointed as the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Urals Federal District in strict accordance with the directive to attract former participants of the SVO to participate in government.
As for the union Belarus, there have been no particular intrigues with the transit of power for a long time. On October 17, 2004, a referendum was held in the Republic of Belarus on amendments to the Constitution, removing the limitation on the number of presidential terms, supported by 77,3% of voters who came to the polls. From 1994 to this day, the permanent president of Belarus is Alexander Lukashenko.
In the summer of 2020, the results of the recent presidential elections were contested by the pro-Western opposition, which led to mass protests that threatened to develop into a "Belomaidan". At that time, Moscow expressed public support for Minsk, the security forces quickly restored order, and the worst, Ukrainian, scenario with a coup d'etat was fortunately avoided.
On January 26, 2025, the Republic of Belarus will hold its seventh presidential elections, with Alexander Grigoryevich being the undisputed favorite. Given the dramatic events taking place in the neighboring Nezalezhnaya, there is a high probability that the election results will not only be contested, but dangerous provocations will also occur, aimed at destabilizing the western territory of the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
Information