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Kazakh ruler Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev 2019
Photo: STANISLAV FILIPPOV / AFP
Kazakhstan's former President Nursultan Nazarbayev has spoken publicly for the first time after an absence of several days.
In a video speech, Nazarbayev tried to dispel suspicions that there were quarrels within the country's elite.
"There is no conflict or confrontation within the elite," the longtime president said, according to the Reuters news agency.
Rumors about it are "completely unfounded".
Nazarbayev, now 81, had led the resource-rich country for three decades.
After the serious riots that left at least 225 dead and hundreds injured at the beginning of the year, several of Nazarbayev's confidants resigned from their posts.
The current president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is reorganizing the country's power apparatus.
For example, Nazarbayev's nephew Samat Abish is no longer deputy head of the national security committee.
Three of Nazarbayev's sons-in-law were also dismissed as heads of two large energy companies and the influential National Chamber of Entrepreneurs.
Nazarbayev on the change of power in 2019: "I've been retired since then"
Nazarbayev now emphasized that he was no longer responsible for the fate of the country.
"I handed over my powers to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in 2019 and have since retired," Nazarbayev said.
He now lives in the Kazakh capital Nursultan and has not moved from there either.
After the riots broke out, there were rumors that Nazarbayev had left the country.
The fact that the new President Tokayev wants to concentrate power in his own country has recently become clear, among other things, from the fact that he dismissed Nazarbayev as head of the Kazakh Security Council under the impression of the protests and took over the post himself.
The trigger for the massive protests in the resource-rich ex-Soviet republic at the beginning of January were increased fuel prices.
The protests later escalated into anti-government demonstrations across the country.
Nazarbayev resigned as president in 2019 but was still considered influential.
fek/Reuters