ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- For all the talk of a changing political culture, is Kazakhstan now even less tolerant of political competition than ever before?
That is the question some observers are asking after a political activist was handed a heavy sentence in a closed trial, with a punishment of similar magnitude expected for another soon.
Nurzhan Altaev and Marat Zhylanbaev are different types of opposition figure; one an ex-official, the other from outside the system.
But the message of Kazakh authorities to any would-be government opponent appears to be the same: No candidates need apply for this position.
First, the formalities.
Altaev, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison on November 21, was not officially charged with crimes relating to his political activism.
He was instead accused of bribe-taking as deputy labor minister several years ago -- charges he strongly denies.
But it is hard not to notice how his trial has run in parallel to Zhylanbaev's, in which prosecutors last week requested a 10-year sentence for "political extremism."
And it is hard not to notice how both men lead unregistered parties that are critical of the government.
Bakytzhan Toregozhina, a longtime rights defender, argues that if Zhylanbaev were to receive a similar kind of sentence it would be possible to call the punishments unprecedented.
"In recent times, authorities have banned political parties, labeling them as extremist and then targeted activists. But the sentences were smaller. I don't recall instances where the state has so demonstratively punished opposition figures in order to frighten civil society," she said.
At the same time, the harsher approach to political competition "shows the fear of the authorities," nearly two years after the deadly unrest known as Bloody January that left at least 238 people dead and the regime on the brink, Toregozhina argued.
Closed Courtrooms In 'Fair Kazakhstan'
The yardstick against which current President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev's rule is inevitably compared to is the almost 30-year reign of first President Nursultan Nazarbaev -- the man who ushered him into the presidency in 2019 only for a power struggle to emerge between their respective camps.
Now 83 and formally retired, Nazarbaev had his fair share of political prisoners, although many of the longest-serving among these could not be described as opposition leaders, aspiring or otherwise.
Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev (left) with his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbaev (file photo)
One politician who did fit that description, Vladimir Kozlov, was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in 2012 on charges of inciting an attempted coup, serving four years before being released.
Kozlov's ally, Mukhtar Ablyazov, was sentenced in 2018 to life imprisonment on an array of charges that included murder -- though in absentia, as the ex-energy minister fled the country in 2009.
Earlier in the years following independence, two other former officials turned Nazarbaev opponents died in mysterious circumstances, which saw critics point fingers at a hardening regime.
Comparisons between then and now are relevant insofar as Toqaev has actively encouraged them.
In the aftermath of the January 2022 unrest -- the worst in the history of independent Kazakhstan -- Toqaev promised a "new Kazakhstan" and then "a fair Kazakhstan" in order to correct what he described as some of the "possible oversights" of mentor Nazarbaev's time at the top.
He was speaking at the time as a newly empowered president after Nazarbaev ceded key levers of influence that had allowed him to dominate his protege, even after he had resigned as head of state.
But the country's courtrooms are suggesting little in the way of change.
Speaking hours after Altaev's sentencing, his lawyer and a fellow member of the unregistered El Tiregi (People's Pillar) party, Nursultan Ermakhanov, told RFE/RL that the closed trial had run the full gamut of judicial woes associated with political cases in Kazakhstan.
Nurzhan Altaev (file photo)
Having been closed because of alleged concern for the security of a witness, the judge convicted Altaev based on the testimony of two people under investigation as part of the case.
Testimonies that shed any doubt on the possibility of Altaev taking regular bribes from the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs when he worked there were completely ignored, Ermakhanov complained.
"Around 90 percent of [the defense's] motions were ignored. The process was pushed through at the speed of light. When the press found out that the prosecution wanted a 12-year sentence for Altaev, the judge even threatened to file for the suspension of our lawyer's license. This was hardly information that needed to be kept secret," said Ermakhanov, arguing that the closed trial was necessary so that the authorities "wouldn't look stupid in front of all of Kazakhstan."
From Inside The System To Inside A Cell
According to Ermakhanov, Altaev had "naively believed that he could change the system from the inside," while serving first as an official and then as a lawmaker.
That naivety was exposed shortly after he presided over the inaugural conference of the pro-reform El Tiregi party in September 2020 while still a member of Kazakhstan's lower house and ruling party.
Sure enough, Altaev was soon ejected from both of those institutions, although he was not overtly critical of the administration to begin with and not everyone was convinced of his opposition credentials.
Pressure on him intensified after he announced his intention to run for president in snap November 2022 elections that were the first since the nationwide bloodshed earlier in the year and after constitutional changes that Toqaev had claimed were part of a "new political culture."
As a fluent Kazakh speaker, with more than five years of state service, and backed by a nomination from a registered organization, Altaev appeared to comfortably meet Kazakhstan's very limiting criteria for candidates.
But Toqaev's team was not happy, Ermakhanov says.
Soon after Toqaev announced the election, top Toqaev officials invited Altaev to a sit-down where he was asked to rule himself out of the election, with El Tiregi's legal registration thrown in as a sweetener. This meeting, Ermakhanov claims, was brokered by former Ata-Meken party head Ablai Myrzhakhmetov, who would later become the chief witness -- even while under investigation himself -- at the former deputy labor minister's bribe-taking trial.
Altaev refused the offer and was duly excluded from the presidential race, with the organization that nominated him as a presidential candidate "raided" and soon taken over, according to Ermakhanov.
None of the officials that Ermakhanov claims were at the September 2022 meeting, including presidential adviser Erlan Karin and current Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu, have ever commented on it, despite accounts of the event published in the media earlier this year.
Altaev was then arrested in June.
Marathon Runner A Nonstarter
The trial of Zhylanbaev, a marathon runner who has participated in races around the world, was also closed to the public.
As with Altaev’s process, the judge made the decision after witnesses claimed their security had been threatened.
Without a political career on his résumé, the 60-year-old Zhylanbaev is untainted by the associations that accompany high office in Kazakhstan.
But prosecutors claim he is tainted by association with Ablyazov, who on top of his other alleged ills is also in charge of a network of extremist organizations, according to Kazakh courts.
Mukhtar Ablyazov (file photo)
The French-based Ablyazov has steadfastly denied all criminal charges against him, while the European Parliament has deemed the unregistered Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) party and others associated with him as "peaceful opposition movements" in resolutions about Kazakhstan.
Kazakh prosecutors have accused Zhylanbaev, the chairman of the unregistered Algha Kazakhstan! (Forward Kazakhstan!) party, of receiving instructions from "extremist" DVK members and of “financing” them.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which reviewed Zhylanbaev's indictment, the only known basis for the second accusation is two wire transfers amounting to just over $2,500.
"The sum total of Zhylanbaev's so-called wrongdoing is publicly but peacefully advocating for a political alternative to Kazakhstan's authoritarian government, and he should be released,” concluded Mihra Rittmann, HRW’s senior Central Asia researcher in a statement on the case this month.
Zhylanbaev certainly appears to have made every effort possible to play by the rules.
His attempt to run as an independent in parliamentary elections held earlier this year was squashed after he was accused of breaking campaign rules with an "early" online crowdfunding appeal.
Algha Kazakhstan! has attempted to register with the Justice Ministry more than a dozen times, but has been refused each time.
In March, Zhylanbaev transgressed by participating in an unsanctioned political demonstration -- spontaneous demonstrations are outlawed in Kazakhstan -- and was sentenced to 20 days in detention.
Zhylanbaev has been behind bars ever since then as prosecutors have piled far more serious charges upon him.
He has been on a hunger strike October 30, shedding 13 kilograms, according to his lawyer.
On November 18, a hearing of his case in Astana was tense as an official warned his supporters that gathering at the courthouse constituted an administrative offense.
Speaking outside the building, Zhylanbaev's daughter Aziya Zhylanbaeva told RFE/RL that her family was being "constantly intimidated" by the authorities as a result of her father's activism.
"I simply feel frightened living in my home country," she said through tears. "This is my country but I don't feel safe here."