The Economist (2022-01-08)

32 Asia TheEconomistJanuary8th 2022

blings have now burst out into the open. 

“Old  man  out”  has  taken  on  a  broader

meaning, too, targeting not just Mr Nazar­

bayev  but  the  entire  political  establish­

ment. Mr Tokayev, who on becoming presi­

dent  in  2019  promised  to  create  what  he

called  a  “listening  state”,  complete  with

democratic  reform  and  political  competi­

tion, has failed to deliver change. Stringent

restrictions  on  civil  liberties  remain,  and

there are no opposition parties. Protesters

have  called  for  the  rubber­stamp  parlia­

ment  to  be  prorogued  and  for  urban  and

provincial  leaders,  who  are  currently  ap­

pointed, to be elected. 

The regime’s first response was to reach

for the carrot. On January 4th it promised

to cut the price of fuel to below its pre­prot­

est  level.  The  president  also  ordered  offi­

cials  to  regulate  prices  for  six  months,  in

effect reintroducing subsidies. The cabinet

was dismissed, in line with demonstrators’

demands. Yet that seemed only to embold­

en  the  protesters.  Using  makeshift  weap­

ons, they battled police, stormed Almaty’s

city  hall  and  torched  other  official  build­

ings in several cities and toppled a statue of

Mr Nazarbayev in one town. 

Next,  the  stick.  Hundreds  of  people

have been arrested. On January 6th Mr To­

kayev extended nationwide a limited state

of  emergency  declared  the  previous  day.

He also took control of the powerful Secu­

rity Council from Mr Nazarbayev and fired

Karim Masimov, the domestic intelligence

chief, a stalwart ally of the old man, to im­

pose his own control over security forces.

Internet  disruptions  have  been  reported

across  the  country.  As  dawn  broke  the

country  was  under  a  total  news  blackout:

all  Kazakhstan­based  websites  were  inac­

cessible and the usual social­media chatter

had fallen silent. 

In  the  hours  before,  Mr  Tokayev  had

said that he was launching an “anti­terro­

rist operation” to beat back rebels who had

seized weapons from gun shops. Some 350

members  of  the  security  forces  had  been

injured, according to the interior ministry.

Shooting  and  looting  broke  out  overnight

in  Almaty.  Police  were  battling  foreign­

trained  terrorists  outside  the  city,  he

claimed. Commentators loyal to President

Vladimir  Putin  have  suggested  that  the

West  is  trying  to  foment  a  colour  revolu­

tion in Kazakhstan. The aim of this imagi­

nary plot is supposedly to destabilise Rus­

sia  as  it  prepares  to  talk  to  natoabout  its

threats to invade Ukraine. 

As  the  situation  deteriorated,  Mr  To­

kayev took the dramatic step of requesting

assistance  “in  overcoming  this  terrorist

threat” from the Collective Security Treaty

Organisation  (csto),  a  military  alliance  of

six post­Soviet states formed in 1994. Nikol

Pashinyan, the prime minister of Armenia,

which  currently  chairs  the  csto,  said  that

the bloc had decided to send peacekeeping

forces “for a limited period,inordertosta­

bilise and normalise thesituation”.It isthe

first time that the cstohasinvokedArticle

4  of  its  treaty,  whichcoversthreatstona­

tional  security  includingsupposed“for­

eign interference”. 

Though  the  alliancehasneverbefore

convened in a crisis,itconductednumer­

ous joint exercises inthesummerandau­

tumn  of  last  year,  notesRobLeeofKing’s

College  London, partlyinresponsetothe

steady  collapse  of Afghanistan, which

shares  a  border  withthebloc.“Thecsto’s

rapid reaction forcesshouldbebetterpre­

pared  to  respond  thannormal”,hesays.

Russian paratrooperswerearrivinginKaz­

akhstan as The Economistwenttopress.

cstotroops wouldbeusedtoguardin­

frastructure, accordingtooneRussianlaw­

maker,  freeing  up  Kazakh forces forthe

bloodier  work  of  crushingprotesters.Mr

TokayevmayalsobehopingthatRussia’s

involvementwillstiffenthespinesofhis

securityforces,reducingthelikelihoodof

defectionsora coup.Butthedecisionto

solicitoutsidehelpisa fatefulstepforthe

country. “Tokayevis throwingaway Ka­

zakhstan’ssovereigntybyaskingforRus­

sianstointervene,”saysJenBrickMurta­

zashvilioftheUniversityofPittsburgh.

Anothercomplicationisthatmanyof

theRussianmilitaryunitstaskedwithre­

spondingtocrisesinCentralAsiaarecur­

rentlysittingneartheUkrainian border,

far fromtheir homebases, aspart ofa

Kremlinefforttointimidatea neighbour

andsqueeze nato. VladimirPutin,Rus­

sia’s president, caught by surprise by

eventsonhissouthernflank,mightfacea

choicebetweendivertingforcesfromthe

west, thus diluting his ability to make

crediblethreatsbeforecrucialtalkswith

Americaandnatonextweek,orlimiting

thescopeofanyassistancetoKazakhstan.

MrTokayevhassofarblamedinternal

provocateurs,outsideforces,hisowngov­

ernmentandoilcompaniesfortheunrest.

InatelevisedaddressonJanuary5thin­

tendedtoconveyresolvehesaidhewould

act“robustly”andreassuredcitizensthat

“whatever happens,I willremaininthe

capital”.Itisunclearwhetherthatiswhat

hiscountry’scitizenswanttohear.n

UZB

EKI

STA

N

Nur-Sultan

RUSSIA

KAZAKHSTAN

TURKMEN-

ISTAN KYRGYZSTAN

AFGHANISTAN TAJIKISTAN

Caspian

Sea

Almaty CHINA

Zhanaozen

500 km

IndiaandOmicron

Elections and

infections

M

any indians would  have  loved  to

slam  the  door  on  2021  with  a  loud

bang  of  good  riddance.  Instead,  celebra­

tions  for  this  new  year  proved  muted.  As

the  highly  contagious  Omicron  variant  of

covid­19  started  spreading  in  late  Decem­

ber  police  in  Mumbai,  the  country’s  com­

mercial  hub,  banned  public  gatherings.

Several  states,  along  with  Delhi,  the  na­

tional capital, ordered night curfews. 

But  it  was  not  just  government­im­

posed  social  distancing  that  dampened

revelry.  Barely  seven  months  have  passed

since a ferocious wave of the Delta variant

racked the country. Covid has left some 5m

Indians dead, according to The Economist’s

excess­deaths  tracker,  the  world’s  highest

toll.  Memories  of  loved  ones  gasping  for

breath,  of  overwhelmed  hospitals  turning

away  the  dying  and  of  the  stench  of  mass

cremations remain all too sharp. It was fear

of  a  reprise  of  such  terrors,  more  than  of

police lathis, that kept fireworks dry.

There is no doubt that India is in for an­

other  massive  wave.  Paul  Kattuman  of

Cambridge  University,  one  of  the  creators

of an India covid tracker that correctly pre­

dicted  last  year’s  peak,  describes  the  cur­

rent  growth  trend  as  “super­exponential”.

The  reproduction  rate  of  the  virus,  or  R,

which  has  mostly  remained  below  the  re­

placement level of 1.0 since June, has from

mid­December  ticked  inexorably  upward,

reaching  2.69  nationwide  on  January  5th,

and  a  frightening  5.0  in  the  rural  state  of

Jharkhand. In the same period the national

tally of fresh daily cases rose more than 15

times, to nearly 91,000. 

That  is  still  a  far  cry  from  the  400,000

new cases a day recorded when the second

wave crested last May. But it is only a mat­

ter  of  time  before  India  scales  this  height

again,  and  it  is  likely  to  be  far  below  the

true  number.  Systemic  undercounting  of

cases and a pattern of spread from big cit­

ies mean that a better measure may be the

proportion of pcrtests returning positive

results. During last year’s peak this briefly

exceeded 25% across India, but by Decem­

ber  27th  it  had  fallen  to  a  low  of  0.5%.  By

January  5th  positivity  rates  in  Mumbai,

which  is  often  ahead  of  the  rest  of  the

country,  were  again  exceeding  25%  (see

chart  on  next  page).  In  both  Mumbai  and

Delhi  (where  positivity  is  also  surging),

Omicron is already the dominant strain.

However ominous the new wave, India

is now much better prepared. Last April the

D ELHI

Not enough lessons have been learnt

from the devastating Delta wave of 2021