ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Once an extremely powerful man in Kazakhstan, Bolat Nazarbaev, the younger brother of Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, died on November 13 at the age of 70, after reportedly suffering a lengthy illness.
The spokeswoman of the Central Clinic in Almaty, Polina Shimanskaya, told RFE/RL that Bolat Nazarbaev was pronounced dead “at 9:51 this morning after a long illness.”
She did not elaborate but media reports have said Nazarbaev was hospitalized earlier in November in Almaty after suffering a heart attack.
In June 2022, local media said Bolat Nazarbaev was fighting a longtime illness and a video showing him in a wheelchair appeared on YouTube at the time.
The reports coincided with a statement from Kazakhstan’s Financial Monitoring Agency saying Bolat Nazarbaev and his former wife, Maira Qurmanghalieva, were targeted by a lawsuit filed by the owners of the financial services company Karuan, who accused them of illegally taking over the firm.
In March, a court in Kazakhstan ordered Bolat Nazarbaev, who sold 31.9 percent of the industrial facility’s shares to a private company in 2009 but continued to control the factory’s operations, to regain the shares and return them to the state.
AZTM used to be state property but was privatized in 1998 with 31.9 percent of its shares obtained by the private company Temir Kon. In 2007, Temir Kon sold the shares to Bolat Nazarbaev.
In 1986, Bolat Nazarbaev’s brother, Nursultan, who ruled the oil-rich Central Asian country for nearly 30 years before he stepped down more than four years ago, said in an interview to a Moscow-based Soviet magazine, Druzhba narodov (Peoples’ Friendship), that his younger brother worked as a plumber.
In 1989, after Nursultan Nazarbaev took over the then-Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Bolat Nazarbaev was already working as a deputy director of a state bakery in the town of Qaskelen. During the decades of his brother’s presidency, Bolat Nazarbaev became one of the richest men in the country and controlled several major businesses and marketplaces in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, and the surrounding region.
Nursultan Nazarbaev, 83, and his clan lost power and influence after January 2022 protests that left at least 238 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, dead and thousands injured.
As he stepped down, Nazarbaev hand-picked longtime ally Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev as his successor.
But he retained sweeping powers as the head of the Security Council, enjoying the powers as “elbasy” — the leader of the nation. Many of his relatives continued to hold important posts in the government, security agencies, and profitable energy groups.
In January 2022, protests that started over a fuel price hike spread across Kazakhstan because of discontent over the cronyism that had long plagued the country. Toqaev subsequently stripped Nazarbaev of the Security Council role, taking it over himself.
Toqaev also annulled the Law on the First President — the Leader of the Nation (Elbasy), depriving Nursultan Nazarbaev of the elbasy title and his immediate family members of legal immunity.
Since January 2022, several of Nazarbaev’s relatives and others close to the family have been pushed out of their positions or resigned.
In September 2022, the former president’s nephew Qairat Satybaldy was sentenced to six years in prison on fraud and embezzlement charges.
Source: Radio Free Radio Liberty
