Over the past several months, Central Asia’s most stable and relatively wealthy regime, Kazakhstan, has turned into the epicenter of political tensions.
US congress-financed RFERL reported that on June 6 “more than 100 opposition activists have been detained by police in Kazakhstan where two opposition parties had planned to hold rallies.”
The regime in Kazakhstan has survived mainly because of its ability to plunder the country’s rich energy resources and share some of it with a population of 19 million. With the latest jolt to global economy due to the coronavirus, it is becoming difficult for Central Asia’s corrupt regimes to allow some of the wealth to trickle down to the people.
Economic problems combined with US-Russia tussle in Central Asia is in the process of shaking-up the autocratic regimes in post-Soviet republics in the region.
Courtesy: RFERL
While the regimes in Central Asia are autocratic, they can only survive with Russian help. Central Asia also continues to be the soft underb...
