Skip to main content

Eurasianet

Main Menu

  • Regions
  • Topics
  • Media
  • About
  • Search
  • Newsletter
  • русский
  • Support us
X

Caucasus

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia

Central Asia

Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Conflict Zones

Abkhazia
Nagorno Karabakh
South Ossetia

Eastern Europe

Belarus
Moldova
Russia
The Baltics
Ukraine

Eurasian Fringe

Afghanistan
China
EU
Iran
Mongolia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
X

Environment

Economy

Politics

Kazakhstan's Bloody January 2022
Kyrgyzstan 2020 unrest

Security

Society

American diplomats in Central Asia
Arts and Culture
Coronavirus
Student spotlight
X

Visual Stories

Podcast
Video

Blogs

Tamada Tales
The Bug Pit

Podcasts

EurasiaChat
Expert Opinions
The Central Asianist
X
You can search using keywords to narrow down the list.

Irksome to Prez, Kazakh PM Still Loved by His People

Joanna Lillis Oct 20, 2010

The Kazakh premier has had a tough few weeks, with cabinet ministers falling like dominoes and the omnipotent president targeting the government with public criticism over spending. All this has sparked rumors that the days of Karim Masimov – Kazakhstan’s longest serving premier ever – as prime minister are numbered.
At last, though, in comes some good news – whatever troubles he may face on the political front, Masimov remains popular with the public, a new opinion poll shows.
The study by the Almaty-based Strategiya Center for Social and Political Research indicates that Masimov enjoys an approval rating of 62 percent, higher than that of the government overall, which stands at 56 percent. Evidently, the public likes the affable, relaxed style projected by Masimov, in stark contrast to some of his buttoned-up predecessors.
The PM’s approval rating remains far lower than that of his boss, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, which stands at just under 90 percent – but that’s probably just as well, since the unrivaled Leader of the Nation tolerates no threat to his own popularity. Nazarbayev, whose ratings regularly hover around the 90-percent mark in opinion polls, has in the past moved to curb the power of any public figure whose star rises too high.
And Masimov’s star may have been doing just that, at least in Nazarbayev’s eyes. 
In late September the Megapolis newspaper got wind of rumors that the president wasn’t too happy with Masimov’s high public profile. “It turned out that Masimov and his team are never off the pages of the press or the television screens,” the broadsheet remarked. That’s perhaps not surprising since Masimov is the prime minister and part of his job is be accountable to the public he governs, but it seemed, according to the newspaper, that Nazarbayev thought there was “more talk than action” emanating from the cabinet.
In a further indication that the president isn’t altogether happy with the government, this week he complained to Masimov that “huge state funds are being used ineffectively.” In remarks quoted by the Ekspress K tabloid, Masimov said Nazarbayev had bluntly told him that “we need to build not palaces but facilities for the needs of the people and of children.”
In the past month Masimov has also had to face down the loss of two members of his cabinet. The head of the health minister, Zhaksylyk Doskaliyev, rolled as he was arrested on corruption charges, and the education minister, Zhanseit Tuymebayev, was replaced amid a row over the operation of one of Kazakhstan’s elite English-language higher education institutions.
The clouds have been gathering over his head, but Masimov may yet weather the storm. He certainly has political staying power – a record four years in office. But as he seeks to shore up his position and make sure he doesn’t incur the president’s wrath, he might make sure he doesn’t become too popular for his own good.

Joanna Lillis is a journalist based in Almaty and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan.

Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.

Popular

Central Asia: Is the China-Kyrgyz-Uzbek railway project encountering a red signal?
China-Central Asia Monitor
Georgia's dis-United National Movement
Giorgi Lomsadze
Azerbaijan, Armenia hold border meeting amid stagnant peace talks
Heydar Isayev

Eurasianet

  • About
  • Team
  • Contribute
  • Republishing
  • Privacy Policy
  • Corrections
  • Contact
Eurasianet © 2023