Kazakhstan’s president has said, in the wake of a constitutional referendum that included a provision to strip his predecessor of immunity, that he will approve legislation to prevent wealth from being accumulated in the hands of a “narrow circle of people.”

The remarks made by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on June 6 are likely to be read as another shot across the bow of the family of the country’s former ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, which amassed billions in assets over his three decades in charge.

Tokayev said the changes to the constitution, which are ostensibly designed to promote the cause of democratization, would mark only the start to changes in Kazakhstan. In future, he said, more attention would be paid to weaning the economy off a reliance on natural resources by adopting “transparent and fair rules.”

Achieving that will require “eradicating all artificial monopolies [and] putting up a reliable barrier to corruption,” he said.

“We need to revise legislation that has contributed to the concentration of the country's economic resources in the hands of a narrow group of people and provided them with unnecessary preferences,” the president said.

The allusion to the Nazarbayev family and its hangers-on could not have been more explicit. Even though the former president has endured a dramatic tumble in status – albeit seemingly safe from prosecution or any such unpleasantness – his immediately family are still fabulously wealthy. A Forbes magazine Kazakhstan rich list published in May showed Timur and Dinara Kulibayev, Nazarbayev’s son-in-law and middle daughter, respectively, holding second and third place in the list with their $4 billion in riches. The list also includes Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, Dariga, his grandson by Dariga, Nurali Aliyev, and several other relatives and members of his inner circle.

Some Nazarbayev cronies have been purged in the wake of political unrest in January that was inspired in large part at public anger over inequality. Within a few weeks following that turbulence, Tokayev ordered the shutdown of an opaque private recycling monopoly tied to Aliya Nazarbayeva, the ex-president’s youngest daughter.

Later, in March, the authorities detained Nazarbayev’s nephew and said they were investigating him over possible involvement in “crimes undermining the security of the state” and alleged embezzlement. Another person facing corruption charges is Kairat Boranbayev, the father-in-law of Aisultan Nazarbayev, the former president’s deceased grandson.

One lingering question is how much capital Kazakhstan’s authorities can realistically expect to claw back from offshore locations. Tokayev said on June 6 that he had created an interdepartmental commission for the repatriation of capital illegally spirited out of the country. He similarly pledged to return illegally privatized assets into state ownership.