Kazakhstan government resigns after violent demonstrations

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev accepted his government’s resignation on Wednesday (5), his office said, after a rise in fuel prices in the oil-rich Central Asian country sparked protests in which nearly 100 police were injured.

Security forces used tear gas and shock grenades late on Tuesday (4) to expel hundreds of protesters from the main square in Almaty, the largest city in the former Soviet republic, and clashes raged for hours in nearby areas.

The protests have shaken Kazakhstan’s image as a politically stable and tightly controlled country used to attract hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment in its oil and metals industries over three decades of independence.

Speaking to acting cabinet members, Tokayev ordered them and provincial governors to re-establish LPG price controls and expand them to gasoline, diesel and other “socially important” consumer goods.

He also ordered the government to develop a personal bankruptcy law and consider freezing utility prices and subsidizing rent payments for poor families.

The president said the situation was improving in cities hit by the protest after a state of emergency was declared, which included curfews and restrictions on movement.

Protests began in the oil-producing province of Mangistau on Sunday after lifting the price limits for liquefied petroleum gas, a popular fuel for cars, a day earlier, after which its price more than doubled.

Tokayev declared the emergency in Almaty and Mangistau and said domestic and foreign provocateurs were behind the violence.

Separately, the Interior Ministry said that, in addition to Almaty, government buildings were attacked in the southern cities of Shymkent and Taraz overnight, with 95 police wounded in the clashes. Police detained more than 200 people.

Almaty Mayor Bakytzhan Sagintayev said in a speech to residents that the situation in the city was under control and that security forces were detaining “provocers and extremists”.