Fully Authoritarian
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Population
HRF classifies Kazakhstan as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Kazakhstan is a presidential republic in which the head of state serves a single seven-year term following constitutional amendments adopted in 2022. The president appoints the prime minister and cabinet, subject to parliamentary approval. The bicameral parliament consists of the 98-seat lower house (Mazhilis) and the 50-member Senate. After Kazakhstan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former First Secretary of the Kazakh Communist Party, consolidated a stable authoritarian regime through a combination of constitutional amendments that vastly expanded presidential powers and the overt persecution of political opponents. Nazarbayev ruled for nearly three decades, formally stepping down in 2019 and transferring power to his hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Nazarbayev initially retained significant influence as a ceremonial “Leader of the Nation” and chair of the National Security Council, before Tokayev stripped them away following widespread unrest that shook the country in 2022. While Tokayev styled himself a reformer and pursued some constitutional amendments that formally introduced checks on the executive and allowed greater political pluralism, these reforms did not yield significant democratic gains. The executive retains vast powers that it has frequently abused to suppress dissent and preempt potential challenges to its rule.
Under the rule of Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, national elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win, despite some nominal openings for political alternatives. The indiscriminate designation of real opposition movements as “extremist” and the judicial persecution of their leaders and ordinary members, together with the large-scale electoral fraud repeatedly perpetrated by the regime, has entrenched the ruling Amanat party (previously, Nur Otan). Largely denied legal status and routinely barred from elections, the real, mainstream political opposition has no available avenues to democratically challenge the regime.
Freedom of dissent in Kazakhstan has been so severely undermined that independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Most of the few independent outlets that have survived the regime’s repression operate entirely online and are susceptible to blocking and internet blackouts, tactics the regime has deployed while cracking down on dissenting protests to obscure its widespread human-rights violations. Civil society groups are routinely denied registration, harassed, and obstructed through administrative and legal sanctions. The regime has also systematically repressed dissenting demonstrations using tactics of varying severity, from onerous “prior notice” regulations to overt state-sponsored violence.
Institutions thoroughly fail to serve as checks on the regime. Lower courts have systematically convicted dissidents on dubious or trumped-up charges and only enabled the regime’s attempts to deny the real, mainstream opposition legal status and thus the opportunity to compete in elections. Trials against opposition figures and activists have long been marred by due process violations, including the use of evidence obtained through torture and ill-treatment in detention. While purportedly bolstering checks and balances, Tokayev’s 2022 constitutional amendments only nominally empowered parliament while effectively reaffirming its subservience to the executive. Finally, the regime’s control of key executive agencies, such as those related to national security, and independent oversight bodies has further enabled the suppression of dissent and the consolidation of a highly centralized, personalized dictatorship.
In Kazakhstan, national elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Continuing Nazarbayev’s legacy of overtly persecuting political opponents, Tokayev’s regime has only nominally liberalized the party system, while continuing to unfairly bar all political movements not aligned with the ruling Amanat party. Large-scale electoral fraud, challenging to fully appraise due to the effective lack of independent oversight, sustains a veneer of legitimacy for Amanat and Tokayev, who typically win in landslides.
The regime has systematically and unfairly barred the real mainstream opposition from competing in elections. Coming to power in 2019, Tokayev inherited a political landscape already purged of viable alternatives from his predecessor, Nazarbayev. A repressive 2002 Law on Political Parties that imposed draconian registration requirements (such as having no less than 50,000 active members) and vague articles of the Criminal Code on “extremism” were frequently weaponized to target opponents. To illustrate, in 2015, an Almaty court banned the Communist Party (KPK), which had been subjected to arbitrary prosecution before, ostensibly for failing to comply with the membership requirements – even though the KPK produced credible evidence it had 58,000 members at the time. Parties that have been banned as “extremist” include Alga (Onwards), banned in late 2012 and formerly led by dissident Vladimir Kozlov. Kozlov received a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for “inciting violence” at workers’ strikes in 2012 following a sham trial, during which the prosecution failed to produce any evidence that the Alga leader had issued a direct call for violence, beyond expressing solidarity with the protesters. The Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) Party, led by the former head of BTI bank and outspoken critic of the regime, Mukhtar Ablyazov, was also designated as “extremist” in 2018. The sole evidence cited in the ruling was a state-commissioned “expert analysis” of content Ablyazov and other members had posted on social media. This analysis, which was never made public, concluded that the content incited readers to “seize power” but provided no further evidence that DVK members were plotting against the regime. Tokayev ostensibly liberalized Kazakhstan’s party system somewhat by amending the 2002 Political Parties Law and the Law on Elections. In 2020, he cut the membership required to register as a political party from 50,000 to 20,000, and in 2022, further reduced it to 5,000. While seemingly promising, these reforms were tangential to the most significant obstacle the opposition faces, namely, regime officials’ broad discretion to deny registration or ban opposition groups, with no oversight or available legal remedies. Further indicating that these symbolic reforms did not prevent or mitigate the ongoing systemic suppression of political alternatives, the January 2021 parliamentary elections featured no real opposition parties. Under Tokayev, the DVK and its successor party, Koshe, remain outlawed as “extremist” organizations, and the persecution of its members persists and has arguably escalated since the nationwide unrest in 2022.
While the systematic persecution of the opposition effectively guarantees its preferred outcomes, Tokayev’s regime has engaged in significant voting irregularities. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) noted numerous irregularities during the regular presidential (2019) and legislative (2021) elections, including ballot stuffing, proxy voting, and voter list tampering. These issues also marred the snap presidential (2022) and parliamentary (2023) elections, which President Tokayev called in an attempt to both legitimize his rule and undermine the opposition’s capacity to mount a successful challenge.
The regime has also severely undermined independent electoral oversight by not only capturing the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) but also by obstructing civil society organizations (CSOs) attempting to conduct impartial observation. The CEC, whose leadership is directly appointed by the president and parliament, has long raised concerns by violating important vote-counting and final result certification procedures. In 2021, the Commission adopted a resolution barring CSOs whose charters did not explicitly include “election observation” activities from sending representatives to polling stations. The measure was plausibly a response to CSOs documenting multiple irregularities in the 2019 presidential election and close collaboration with international observers.
The regime has skewed the electoral playing field so much so that it generally claims victory with a very high vote share. The obstruction of independent oversight makes it challenging to ascertain the full extent of electoral fraud, yet the regime’s extremely high vote shares in recent elections are telling: in the November 2022 presidential election, Tokayev claimed 81,3% of the vote according to the Central Election Commission, a margin of victory highly unlikely in truly competitive elections. The party he leads, Amanat, won a majority of seats in both the 2021 and 2023 elections, with 71.09% and 53,9% respectively. The only real opposition party with active registration, the National Social Democratic Party (OSDP), boycotted the 2021 vote, indicating its perceived inability to win under the current circumstances, and claimed only 5 out of 97 seats in the Mazhilis (National Assembly) in the 2023 election.
In Kazakhstan, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Officials have systematically abused vague articles of the Criminal and Administrative codes and a 2024 media law to persecute dissidents and critical journalists. During periods of social unrest, the regime has strategically shut down internet access to censor independent reporting. Arbitrary denials of registration and administrative sanctions have seriously obstructed CSOs. The regime has also heavily repressed dissenting demonstrations and sanctioned the killing of peaceful protesters.
The Tokayev regime has seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent and dissenting media, political leaders, and civil society leaders. It created a lasting chilling effect by adopting a restrictive law “On Mass Media” in 2024, which imposed onerous accreditation requirements on “foreign journalists” and media staff operating in the country. Under the new law, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to accredit seven journalists from Radio Azattyq, the Kazakh branch of Radio Free Europe, in July 2025, arguing that they had engaged in “professional journalistic activities” while their accreditation applications were still under review. A court in Astana upheld the Ministry’s decision a month later, even though the journalists were citizens of Kazakhstan and fell outside the law’s scope. In a ruling widely condemned as arbitrary by international media watchdogs (e.g., the International Federation of Journalists), the court found that “any individual” in a “contractual relationship” with a foreign outlet could be considered a “foreign journalist” and therefore subject to accreditation requirements. In addition, the regime has frequently abused vague laws, such as articles of the Criminal Code sanctioning “inciting discord” (Art. 174), or parts of the Administrative Code that ban “knowingly spreading false information” (Art. 456). For instance, in December 2025, police raided the offices of independent outlet Orda and temporarily detained at least five members for questioning, after charging chief editor Gulhara Bazhkenova under Article. 456. International watchdogs decried the prosecution as politically motivated and clearly retaliatory, considering Orda’s investigative reporting on high-profile corruption and the growing extrajudicial violence against journalists in Kazakhstan.
Officials have also repeatedly deployed internet shutdowns and website bans to unfairly censor dissenting speech. During the mass unrest at the start of 2022 (known as “Bloody January”), the regime imposed a five-day, near-total internet blackout, cutting off access to websites, messaging apps, and social media. The shutdown critically impaired communications between participants and helped conceal the full extent and severity of the regime’s human rights violations, which included the indiscriminate killing of peaceful protesters.
Tokayev’s regime has unfairly shut down independent and dissenting organizations or placed them in a financially precarious position through arbitrary administrative measures. In January 2021, tax officials unexpectedly audited Echo, an independent human rights group that had just sent monitors to the recent presidential election and was preparing a report on observed irregularities. Citing minor inconsistencies in the organization’s 2018 foreign funding report, officials suspended its operations for 3 months and imposed a $1,500 fine. Shortly thereafter, 12 other CSOs, many of which had also sent observers to the election, were simultaneously investigated for similar reporting violations, prompting criticism by foreign representatives that the audits were politically motivated. There is emerging evidence that the regime has also systematically obstructed activists working on sensitive issues, as multiple civic collectives have had their registration requests repeatedly denied by the Justice Ministry without justification. Their leaders, in turn, have been sanctioned for “leading an unregistered organization,” including Gulzada Serzhan and Zhanar Sekerbayeva, who were both fined approximately $1,500 in February 2025, for holding a meeting of the banned Feminita feminist group. The space for such organizations shrank further in December 2025, as the regime adopted a repressive law “against LGBTQ+ propaganda,” which banned the promotion of “nontraditional” sexual orientation, with sanctions ranging from steep fines to imprisonment.
Lastly, the regime has systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. In January 2022, Kazakhstan witnessed widespread protests triggered by a significant increase in gas prices. The regime responded with a brutal crackdown: issuing “shoot-to-kill” orders, it caused the deaths of at least 225 people; it imprisoned over 10,000 individuals, and resorted to internet blackouts to obstruct critical coverage of the protests, as described above. These events were reminiscent of the 2011 Zhanaozen massacre, in which law enforcement opened fire against workers protesting poor working conditions, killing at least 16 and injuring another 100. Even short of overt violent crackdowns like these two instances, the regime has long resorted to administrative measures to unduly limit the freedom of assembly. In 2020, Tokayev ostensibly loosened restrictions on public gatherings, but experts noted that implementing the new regulations produced outcomes similar to those of the earlier, more overtly draconian versions of freedom of assembly laws under Nazarbayev. While formal “authorization” was no longer required, organizers must still submit “notice of intent” and wait for an official response, typically for three to seven business days. Representatives of “unregistered” groups are legally barred from organizing demonstrations, a provision the regime has abused to fine prominent civil society leaders spotted at protests in some notable instances. In January 2022, human rights defender Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a recipient of international awards for his reporting, was sentenced to ten days of administrative arrest for attending a demonstration in a journalistic capacity. Akhmedyarov reported suffering degrading treatment in detention, including protracted solitary confinement, 24/7 video surveillance, and denial of legal representation.
In Kazakhstan, institutions thoroughly fail to serve as a check on the regime. The courts remain subservient to the executive and have routinely convicted opposition leaders and dissidents on vague charges, in proceedings often marred by gross due process violations. Parliament lacks the capacity to provide independent oversight of the executive, which, by contrast, has broad prerogatives to take over legislative functions. Lastly, nominally independent oversight bodies are also under tight presidential control and have selectively applied a range of state policies to target political challengers and activists.
Both Nazarbayev and Tokayev have subjected judicial institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. Tokayev has projected a commitment to the rule of law and “institutional renewal” and pursued limited symbolic improvements, such as the 2022 re-establishment of the Constitutional Court, controversially dissolved by Nazarbayev in 1995. Nonetheless, there is little evidence that the judicial branch, functionally subservient to the executive since the 2019 top-down transfer of power from Nazarbayev to Tokayev, has become more functionally independent: the president retains disproportionate centralized control over judicial appointments, nominating or directly appointing magistrates based on recommendations by the Supreme Judicial Council, which is itself hand-picked by the executive. Due to the lack of independent oversight of these procedures, judges are vulnerable to overt political influence. International experts have also noted that corruption within the judicial branch is pervasive.
Reflecting their institutional capture, the courts have systematically failed to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. The local human rights groups Ar.Rukh.Khak and Otkrytyj Dialog (Open Dialogue) estimated that between 2018 and 2021, no less than 56 people, including prominent activists and ordinary citizens with minimal political engagement, had been convicted under the infamous Article 405 of the criminal code for participating in the activities of “extremist” organizations. Civil activist Medet Yesseneev, for instance, received a one-year probation sentence for displaying a banner in support of political prisoners and expressing solidarity with the banned political party Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan (DVK) in 2020. The judicial persecution of DVK and Koshe party sympathizers is just one example of how the courts have further skewed electoral competition in the regime’s favor by effectively precluding the emergence of a viable opposition. In addition, courts in Kazakhstan have systematically violated due process by admitting evidence likely obtained by torture and ill-treatment in detention.
Inheriting a de facto subordinate legislature from Nazarbayev, Tokayev pushed constitutional amendments that further weakened parliament’s operational effectiveness by reaffirming the executive’s prerogatives to take over certain legislative functions at will. To allay public outcry following the regime’s violent crackdown on the 2022 protests, Tokayev proclaimed a transition away from “superpresidentialism” (whereby power is concentrated in the executive) and proposed changes to 33 articles (about a third) of the Constitution, subsequently approved via referendum. Legal experts assessed these amendments as superficial, contributing little to the actual separation of powers and to parliament’s real functions. Even more importantly, the changes reaffirmed the executive’s powers to directly interfere with the legislative process by proposing changes to bills that parliament can only override under strict conditions: a three-fourths majority for constitutional laws and a two-thirds majority for ordinary laws. Given the dominance of the ruling Amanat party, which holds 62 out of 98 seats in the lower house of parliament, these regulations effectively preclude the legislature from checking the presidency. Lastly, the executive retained its broad powers to adopt temporary decrees with the force of law without parliamentary approval.
Oversight bodies, while autonomous on paper, are under the executive’s direct control, severely undermining their independence and operational capacity. The presidency’s centralized influence extends across multiple areas of governance through the Accounts Committee, which monitors public spending, the Agency for Civil Service Affairs and Anti-Corruption, and the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA), among others. International observers, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have repeatedly noted these bodies’ susceptibility to political interference and generally selective application of the relevant integrity and anti-corruption policies. In 2024, the OECD assessed Kazakhstan’s conflict-of-interest protections, judicial independence, and prosecutorial independence as “low,” and its anti-corruption institutions and public procurement oversight as “average.” Some of these bodies have also been leveraged by Tokayev to persecute allies of Nazarbayev (who retained considerable influence up until 2022) and civil society leaders. For instance, in 2024-2025, international watchdogs reported dissidents had been placed on a “Financing Terrorism List,” compiled by the FMA with no external oversight, which resulted in asset freezes and an inability to access basic banking services. Many had no credible links to terrorist groups, but prior convictions for “extremism,” a vague charge the regime has systematically abused to target critics, were enough for the regime to initiate such extreme measures. Gulzipa Dzhaukerova, a former school teacher sentenced to a 1-year suspended sentence for “extremism” twice, in 2019 and 2021, for participating in peaceful demonstrations, was also on the list and faced these restrictions, with no available legal avenues to contest her inclusion. Lastly, the political subservience of the president-appointed Ombudsperson, the highest public official monitoring human rights in Kazakhstan, has also severely undermined oversight of the regime’s violations. Illustrating its ties to the regime, in May 2025, the Ombudsperson publicly attacked the local CSO Coalition against Torture because of information submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture in response to a request for input. The official dismissed the Coalition’s findings as “biased” and ‘’distorted’’ and claimed, wrongly, that the EU ‘’was paying’’ for the UN submission.
HRF classifies Kazakhstan as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Kazakhstan is a presidential republic in which the head of state serves a single seven-year term following constitutional amendments adopted in 2022. The president appoints the prime minister and cabinet, subject to parliamentary approval. The bicameral parliament consists of the 98-seat lower house (Mazhilis) and the 50-member Senate. After Kazakhstan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former First Secretary of the Kazakh Communist Party, consolidated a stable authoritarian regime through a combination of constitutional amendments that vastly expanded presidential powers and the overt persecution of political opponents. Nazarbayev ruled for nearly three decades, formally stepping down in 2019 and transferring power to his hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Nazarbayev initially retained significant influence as a ceremonial “Leader of the Nation” and chair of the National Security Council, before Tokayev stripped them away following widespread unrest that shook the country in 2022. While Tokayev styled himself a reformer and pursued some constitutional amendments that formally introduced checks on the executive and allowed greater political pluralism, these reforms did not yield significant democratic gains. The executive retains vast powers that it has frequently abused to suppress dissent and preempt potential challenges to its rule.
Under the rule of Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, national elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win, despite some nominal openings for political alternatives. The indiscriminate designation of real opposition movements as “extremist” and the judicial persecution of their leaders and ordinary members, together with the large-scale electoral fraud repeatedly perpetrated by the regime, has entrenched the ruling Amanat party (previously, Nur Otan). Largely denied legal status and routinely barred from elections, the real, mainstream political opposition has no available avenues to democratically challenge the regime.
Freedom of dissent in Kazakhstan has been so severely undermined that independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Most of the few independent outlets that have survived the regime’s repression operate entirely online and are susceptible to blocking and internet blackouts, tactics the regime has deployed while cracking down on dissenting protests to obscure its widespread human-rights violations. Civil society groups are routinely denied registration, harassed, and obstructed through administrative and legal sanctions. The regime has also systematically repressed dissenting demonstrations using tactics of varying severity, from onerous “prior notice” regulations to overt state-sponsored violence.
Institutions thoroughly fail to serve as checks on the regime. Lower courts have systematically convicted dissidents on dubious or trumped-up charges and only enabled the regime’s attempts to deny the real, mainstream opposition legal status and thus the opportunity to compete in elections. Trials against opposition figures and activists have long been marred by due process violations, including the use of evidence obtained through torture and ill-treatment in detention. While purportedly bolstering checks and balances, Tokayev’s 2022 constitutional amendments only nominally empowered parliament while effectively reaffirming its subservience to the executive. Finally, the regime’s control of key executive agencies, such as those related to national security, and independent oversight bodies has further enabled the suppression of dissent and the consolidation of a highly centralized, personalized dictatorship.
In Kazakhstan, national elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Continuing Nazarbayev’s legacy of overtly persecuting political opponents, Tokayev’s regime has only nominally liberalized the party system, while continuing to unfairly bar all political movements not aligned with the ruling Amanat party. Large-scale electoral fraud, challenging to fully appraise due to the effective lack of independent oversight, sustains a veneer of legitimacy for Amanat and Tokayev, who typically win in landslides.
The regime has systematically and unfairly barred the real mainstream opposition from competing in elections. Coming to power in 2019, Tokayev inherited a political landscape already purged of viable alternatives from his predecessor, Nazarbayev. A repressive 2002 Law on Political Parties that imposed draconian registration requirements (such as having no less than 50,000 active members) and vague articles of the Criminal Code on “extremism” were frequently weaponized to target opponents. To illustrate, in 2015, an Almaty court banned the Communist Party (KPK), which had been subjected to arbitrary prosecution before, ostensibly for failing to comply with the membership requirements – even though the KPK produced credible evidence it had 58,000 members at the time. Parties that have been banned as “extremist” include Alga (Onwards), banned in late 2012 and formerly led by dissident Vladimir Kozlov. Kozlov received a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for “inciting violence” at workers’ strikes in 2012 following a sham trial, during which the prosecution failed to produce any evidence that the Alga leader had issued a direct call for violence, beyond expressing solidarity with the protesters. The Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) Party, led by the former head of BTI bank and outspoken critic of the regime, Mukhtar Ablyazov, was also designated as “extremist” in 2018. The sole evidence cited in the ruling was a state-commissioned “expert analysis” of content Ablyazov and other members had posted on social media. This analysis, which was never made public, concluded that the content incited readers to “seize power” but provided no further evidence that DVK members were plotting against the regime. Tokayev ostensibly liberalized Kazakhstan’s party system somewhat by amending the 2002 Political Parties Law and the Law on Elections. In 2020, he cut the membership required to register as a political party from 50,000 to 20,000, and in 2022, further reduced it to 5,000. While seemingly promising, these reforms were tangential to the most significant obstacle the opposition faces, namely, regime officials’ broad discretion to deny registration or ban opposition groups, with no oversight or available legal remedies. Further indicating that these symbolic reforms did not prevent or mitigate the ongoing systemic suppression of political alternatives, the January 2021 parliamentary elections featured no real opposition parties. Under Tokayev, the DVK and its successor party, Koshe, remain outlawed as “extremist” organizations, and the persecution of its members persists and has arguably escalated since the nationwide unrest in 2022.
While the systematic persecution of the opposition effectively guarantees its preferred outcomes, Tokayev’s regime has engaged in significant voting irregularities. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) noted numerous irregularities during the regular presidential (2019) and legislative (2021) elections, including ballot stuffing, proxy voting, and voter list tampering. These issues also marred the snap presidential (2022) and parliamentary (2023) elections, which President Tokayev called in an attempt to both legitimize his rule and undermine the opposition’s capacity to mount a successful challenge.
The regime has also severely undermined independent electoral oversight by not only capturing the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) but also by obstructing civil society organizations (CSOs) attempting to conduct impartial observation. The CEC, whose leadership is directly appointed by the president and parliament, has long raised concerns by violating important vote-counting and final result certification procedures. In 2021, the Commission adopted a resolution barring CSOs whose charters did not explicitly include “election observation” activities from sending representatives to polling stations. The measure was plausibly a response to CSOs documenting multiple irregularities in the 2019 presidential election and close collaboration with international observers.
The regime has skewed the electoral playing field so much so that it generally claims victory with a very high vote share. The obstruction of independent oversight makes it challenging to ascertain the full extent of electoral fraud, yet the regime’s extremely high vote shares in recent elections are telling: in the November 2022 presidential election, Tokayev claimed 81,3% of the vote according to the Central Election Commission, a margin of victory highly unlikely in truly competitive elections. The party he leads, Amanat, won a majority of seats in both the 2021 and 2023 elections, with 71.09% and 53,9% respectively. The only real opposition party with active registration, the National Social Democratic Party (OSDP), boycotted the 2021 vote, indicating its perceived inability to win under the current circumstances, and claimed only 5 out of 97 seats in the Mazhilis (National Assembly) in the 2023 election.
In Kazakhstan, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Officials have systematically abused vague articles of the Criminal and Administrative codes and a 2024 media law to persecute dissidents and critical journalists. During periods of social unrest, the regime has strategically shut down internet access to censor independent reporting. Arbitrary denials of registration and administrative sanctions have seriously obstructed CSOs. The regime has also heavily repressed dissenting demonstrations and sanctioned the killing of peaceful protesters.
The Tokayev regime has seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent and dissenting media, political leaders, and civil society leaders. It created a lasting chilling effect by adopting a restrictive law “On Mass Media” in 2024, which imposed onerous accreditation requirements on “foreign journalists” and media staff operating in the country. Under the new law, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to accredit seven journalists from Radio Azattyq, the Kazakh branch of Radio Free Europe, in July 2025, arguing that they had engaged in “professional journalistic activities” while their accreditation applications were still under review. A court in Astana upheld the Ministry’s decision a month later, even though the journalists were citizens of Kazakhstan and fell outside the law’s scope. In a ruling widely condemned as arbitrary by international media watchdogs (e.g., the International Federation of Journalists), the court found that “any individual” in a “contractual relationship” with a foreign outlet could be considered a “foreign journalist” and therefore subject to accreditation requirements. In addition, the regime has frequently abused vague laws, such as articles of the Criminal Code sanctioning “inciting discord” (Art. 174), or parts of the Administrative Code that ban “knowingly spreading false information” (Art. 456). For instance, in December 2025, police raided the offices of independent outlet Orda and temporarily detained at least five members for questioning, after charging chief editor Gulhara Bazhkenova under Article. 456. International watchdogs decried the prosecution as politically motivated and clearly retaliatory, considering Orda’s investigative reporting on high-profile corruption and the growing extrajudicial violence against journalists in Kazakhstan.
Officials have also repeatedly deployed internet shutdowns and website bans to unfairly censor dissenting speech. During the mass unrest at the start of 2022 (known as “Bloody January”), the regime imposed a five-day, near-total internet blackout, cutting off access to websites, messaging apps, and social media. The shutdown critically impaired communications between participants and helped conceal the full extent and severity of the regime’s human rights violations, which included the indiscriminate killing of peaceful protesters.
Tokayev’s regime has unfairly shut down independent and dissenting organizations or placed them in a financially precarious position through arbitrary administrative measures. In January 2021, tax officials unexpectedly audited Echo, an independent human rights group that had just sent monitors to the recent presidential election and was preparing a report on observed irregularities. Citing minor inconsistencies in the organization’s 2018 foreign funding report, officials suspended its operations for 3 months and imposed a $1,500 fine. Shortly thereafter, 12 other CSOs, many of which had also sent observers to the election, were simultaneously investigated for similar reporting violations, prompting criticism by foreign representatives that the audits were politically motivated. There is emerging evidence that the regime has also systematically obstructed activists working on sensitive issues, as multiple civic collectives have had their registration requests repeatedly denied by the Justice Ministry without justification. Their leaders, in turn, have been sanctioned for “leading an unregistered organization,” including Gulzada Serzhan and Zhanar Sekerbayeva, who were both fined approximately $1,500 in February 2025, for holding a meeting of the banned Feminita feminist group. The space for such organizations shrank further in December 2025, as the regime adopted a repressive law “against LGBTQ+ propaganda,” which banned the promotion of “nontraditional” sexual orientation, with sanctions ranging from steep fines to imprisonment.
Lastly, the regime has systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. In January 2022, Kazakhstan witnessed widespread protests triggered by a significant increase in gas prices. The regime responded with a brutal crackdown: issuing “shoot-to-kill” orders, it caused the deaths of at least 225 people; it imprisoned over 10,000 individuals, and resorted to internet blackouts to obstruct critical coverage of the protests, as described above. These events were reminiscent of the 2011 Zhanaozen massacre, in which law enforcement opened fire against workers protesting poor working conditions, killing at least 16 and injuring another 100. Even short of overt violent crackdowns like these two instances, the regime has long resorted to administrative measures to unduly limit the freedom of assembly. In 2020, Tokayev ostensibly loosened restrictions on public gatherings, but experts noted that implementing the new regulations produced outcomes similar to those of the earlier, more overtly draconian versions of freedom of assembly laws under Nazarbayev. While formal “authorization” was no longer required, organizers must still submit “notice of intent” and wait for an official response, typically for three to seven business days. Representatives of “unregistered” groups are legally barred from organizing demonstrations, a provision the regime has abused to fine prominent civil society leaders spotted at protests in some notable instances. In January 2022, human rights defender Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a recipient of international awards for his reporting, was sentenced to ten days of administrative arrest for attending a demonstration in a journalistic capacity. Akhmedyarov reported suffering degrading treatment in detention, including protracted solitary confinement, 24/7 video surveillance, and denial of legal representation.
In Kazakhstan, institutions thoroughly fail to serve as a check on the regime. The courts remain subservient to the executive and have routinely convicted opposition leaders and dissidents on vague charges, in proceedings often marred by gross due process violations. Parliament lacks the capacity to provide independent oversight of the executive, which, by contrast, has broad prerogatives to take over legislative functions. Lastly, nominally independent oversight bodies are also under tight presidential control and have selectively applied a range of state policies to target political challengers and activists.
Both Nazarbayev and Tokayev have subjected judicial institutions to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. Tokayev has projected a commitment to the rule of law and “institutional renewal” and pursued limited symbolic improvements, such as the 2022 re-establishment of the Constitutional Court, controversially dissolved by Nazarbayev in 1995. Nonetheless, there is little evidence that the judicial branch, functionally subservient to the executive since the 2019 top-down transfer of power from Nazarbayev to Tokayev, has become more functionally independent: the president retains disproportionate centralized control over judicial appointments, nominating or directly appointing magistrates based on recommendations by the Supreme Judicial Council, which is itself hand-picked by the executive. Due to the lack of independent oversight of these procedures, judges are vulnerable to overt political influence. International experts have also noted that corruption within the judicial branch is pervasive.
Reflecting their institutional capture, the courts have systematically failed to check regime attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. The local human rights groups Ar.Rukh.Khak and Otkrytyj Dialog (Open Dialogue) estimated that between 2018 and 2021, no less than 56 people, including prominent activists and ordinary citizens with minimal political engagement, had been convicted under the infamous Article 405 of the criminal code for participating in the activities of “extremist” organizations. Civil activist Medet Yesseneev, for instance, received a one-year probation sentence for displaying a banner in support of political prisoners and expressing solidarity with the banned political party Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan (DVK) in 2020. The judicial persecution of DVK and Koshe party sympathizers is just one example of how the courts have further skewed electoral competition in the regime’s favor by effectively precluding the emergence of a viable opposition. In addition, courts in Kazakhstan have systematically violated due process by admitting evidence likely obtained by torture and ill-treatment in detention.
Inheriting a de facto subordinate legislature from Nazarbayev, Tokayev pushed constitutional amendments that further weakened parliament’s operational effectiveness by reaffirming the executive’s prerogatives to take over certain legislative functions at will. To allay public outcry following the regime’s violent crackdown on the 2022 protests, Tokayev proclaimed a transition away from “superpresidentialism” (whereby power is concentrated in the executive) and proposed changes to 33 articles (about a third) of the Constitution, subsequently approved via referendum. Legal experts assessed these amendments as superficial, contributing little to the actual separation of powers and to parliament’s real functions. Even more importantly, the changes reaffirmed the executive’s powers to directly interfere with the legislative process by proposing changes to bills that parliament can only override under strict conditions: a three-fourths majority for constitutional laws and a two-thirds majority for ordinary laws. Given the dominance of the ruling Amanat party, which holds 62 out of 98 seats in the lower house of parliament, these regulations effectively preclude the legislature from checking the presidency. Lastly, the executive retained its broad powers to adopt temporary decrees with the force of law without parliamentary approval.
Oversight bodies, while autonomous on paper, are under the executive’s direct control, severely undermining their independence and operational capacity. The presidency’s centralized influence extends across multiple areas of governance through the Accounts Committee, which monitors public spending, the Agency for Civil Service Affairs and Anti-Corruption, and the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA), among others. International observers, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have repeatedly noted these bodies’ susceptibility to political interference and generally selective application of the relevant integrity and anti-corruption policies. In 2024, the OECD assessed Kazakhstan’s conflict-of-interest protections, judicial independence, and prosecutorial independence as “low,” and its anti-corruption institutions and public procurement oversight as “average.” Some of these bodies have also been leveraged by Tokayev to persecute allies of Nazarbayev (who retained considerable influence up until 2022) and civil society leaders. For instance, in 2024-2025, international watchdogs reported dissidents had been placed on a “Financing Terrorism List,” compiled by the FMA with no external oversight, which resulted in asset freezes and an inability to access basic banking services. Many had no credible links to terrorist groups, but prior convictions for “extremism,” a vague charge the regime has systematically abused to target critics, were enough for the regime to initiate such extreme measures. Gulzipa Dzhaukerova, a former school teacher sentenced to a 1-year suspended sentence for “extremism” twice, in 2019 and 2021, for participating in peaceful demonstrations, was also on the list and faced these restrictions, with no available legal avenues to contest her inclusion. Lastly, the political subservience of the president-appointed Ombudsperson, the highest public official monitoring human rights in Kazakhstan, has also severely undermined oversight of the regime’s violations. Illustrating its ties to the regime, in May 2025, the Ombudsperson publicly attacked the local CSO Coalition against Torture because of information submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture in response to a request for input. The official dismissed the Coalition’s findings as “biased” and ‘’distorted’’ and claimed, wrongly, that the EU ‘’was paying’’ for the UN submission.
