Kazakhstan’s ruling Amanat party has announced it will merge with a party launched only a month ago by allies of the country’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
The announcement by Amanat, which broadly translates as ‘Legacy’ in English, comes ahead of parliamentary elections in the Central Asian nation in August.
Amanat has effectively been Kazakhstan’s ruling party since independence. It had been called Nur Otan until 2022, emerging out of political organisations supportive of Kazakhstan's first President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who led the country from 1991 until 2019.
At its congress in the capital Astana, Amanat said it would become part of the Adilet party, or ‘Justice’ party in English, ahead of the elections. Amanat has secured large parliamentary majorities in every vote it has contested.
The move comes amid an ongoing overhaul of Kazakhstan's tightly controlled politics, with Tokayev set to step down when his term ends in 2029.
While Tokayev is no longer a member of the Amanat, having resigned in April 2022, a ‘People’s Coalition,’ which included Amanat and two other smaller parties backed his second presidential run in November of the same year.
The new Adilet party is seen as directly loyal to Tokayev, who Nazarbayev chose as his successor in 2019, with top aides to the President among its leadership.
In January 2022, Kazakhstan was roiled by nationwide protests sparked by rising fuel prices, which quickly turned into a wider protest about corruption, poverty and inequality in the country of 20.5 million.
The upheaval was jumped on by criminal armed groups and peripheral Salafist religious organisations, who quickly dominated the streets.
It is widely believed that allies of the former President Nazarbayev and his family used the opportunity to attempt to oust Tokayev and retake power.
The country’s intelligence chief Karim Massimov, a close ally of Nazarbayev, was arrested during the crisis and later convicted of treason.
Nazarbayev himself was ousted from the country’s Security Council, the body that assists the President with national security, by Tokayev.
Violence erupted cross the country during the unrest and Russia ended up sending a peacekeeping force to help Tokayev regain control.
Kazakhs voted overwhelmingly in March of this year to adopt a new constitution, which reduced the country’s legislature from two chambers to one and reintroduced the post of Vice President.
The current parliament is set to dissolve on 1 July.
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