The president of Kazakhstan, the vast former Soviet republic in Central Asia, Qasim-Jomart Tokayev, overnight accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Askar Mamin’s government and declared much of the country a state of emergency following an outburst of anger. to boost fuel prices.
President Tokayev has appointed Alikhan Smailov as caretaker Prime Minister, as announced by the Presidency early Wednesday morning. Until recently, the new prime minister was the first deputy prime minister.
On Tuesday night, images from Alma Ata, the country’s largest city, showed repression forces and crowd control vehicles concentrated in central locations.
Police cars are reported to be fired, while protesters seem to defy their temperatures under zero to manifest their fuel-on fuel.
The internet on mobile devices has crashed, while messaging applications have been blocked.
“Any calls to invade or attack government buildings are completely illegal,” Tokayev said in a video message Tuesday night.
Through Twitter, the head of the Kazakh state accused the protesters of “destructive intentions, who want to undermine the stability and unity of society.”
During the day, however, Tokayev said, the government will meet to discuss the social and economic demands of the protesters.
The state of emergency in the provinces of Almaty and Mangistau will last for two weeks.
The main issue of the protests is the doubling in a few days of the price of LPG, which most people, especially in western Kazakhstan, use to refuel their cars.
Tokayev said the government would set a ceiling of 50 tenge (0.10 euros) per liter on LPG, about half of its current market price in Mangistau province.
In some areas, however, protests have become more openly political in nature against the rulers’ lack of accountability in a country that has been ruled for decades by an authoritarian regime.
Tokayev took power from Kazakhstan’s decades-old leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the country since Soviet times (then a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) and remained president until 2019.
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Source From: Capital
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