08:34
Tieng Anh Vui
A FEW protesters brandishing lacy underwear may not look like a threat to the stability of the state. But the authorities of oil-rich Kazakhstan took no chances on February 16th when a group of demonstrators waving their knickers appeared on the streets of the financial capital, Almaty. The “pantie protesters” were rounded up and led away.
Their demonstration was ostensibly prompted by a rule regulating synthetic underwear due to come into force this summer under a new customs union between Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus. The restrictions (which have been compared to the EU’s famous rulebook supposedly regulating the curvature of bananas) have sparked widespread ridicule. Yet the protest was not really about lingerie at all, says Yevgeniya Plakhina, a demonstrator, but about the “absurdity” of the system presided over by the country’s 73-year-old president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The particular source of anger was the devaluation of the Kazakh currency, the tenge, on February 11th. It plunged by 19%, causing fears of a spike in inflation and a dip in living standards in a country that imports many consumer goods. The following day 50 demonstrators gathered at the central bank to air their grievances; 35 peaceful protesters were arrested at other rallies in Almaty over the weekend for breaching Kazakhstan’s draconian public-assembly laws. Most were fined. One was jailed for ten days.
The protests are small but they hint that Mr Nazarbayev’s unspoken social contract—in which citizens trade political freedoms for relative prosperity and social stability—is becoming fragile. Tensions surfaced in 2011, when 15 people were shot dead as striking oil workers clashed with police in Zhanaozhen in the west of the country. Now the devaluation has reminded many ordinary people—maxed out on credit and exasperated by the growing rich-poor divide—that they are not living the “Kazakh dream”.
Mr Nazarbayev likes to play the elder statesman, taking credit for Kazakhstan’s achievements—from sustained, albeit oil-fuelled, economic growth (6% last year) to apparent social cohesion in a state fashioned from many ethnic groups. Yet when things go awry, the president is conspicuously absent, in this case spotted hobnobbing at the Winter Olympics in Sochi when his central-bank chief, Kayrat Kelimbetov, announced the devaluation.
Mr Kelimbetov said that Kazakhstan could no longer afford to spend billions propping up the tenge (which is pegged to a basket of the dollar, the euro and the Russian rouble) and needed to make exports more competitive. He cited fallout from the “tapering” of quantitative easing in America, capital flight from emerging markets and a falling rouble (whose trajectory the tenge tends to mirror, since Russia is a close trading partner).
The timing of this economic turmoil is awkward for the president as he contemplates his legacy after more than two decades in power. His term runs for nearly three more years, but he is keeping the public and investors guessing about whether he will stay on or step down. With organised opposition groups long emasculated, the nascent anti-devaluation movement (pants-waving or not) lacks political leadership. The state propaganda machine still ensures a large measure of public acclaim for Mr Nazarbayev, however forced. Yet the sight of young protesters in Almaty gleefully taking up the slogan “Old man out!” may give him pause for thought.
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