On 4 February, a house fire in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, killed five sisters aged between one and 13. Women campaigning for increased social and financial support for “hero mothers” - as mothers to six or more children are known - pointed to the fire as evidence that the state is failing to help families. Rallies were held on 11 February across Kazakhstan, from Aktobe to Karaganda, from Almaty to Shymkent.
Also in February residents of Zhanaozen, in Mangystau region, protested for work, and protestors in Astana and Almaty were detained during the ruling party Nur Otan congress and at the party office, respectively. In March, after Nursultan Nazarbayev's resignation from the presidency, people in Almaty, Astana and Uralsk were arrested for protesting interim President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's decision to rename the capital Astana into Nur-Sultan, in honour of the outgoing “Leader of the Nation”.
These demonstrations have led at least one analyst to argue that discontent in Kazakhstan is becoming more common. Alternatively, discontent was present before, but has been surfacing more often of late. Regardless, demonstrations in Kazakhstan are significant: protests are rare in a country classified as authoritarian by various measures of regime characterisation.
