This week on the CAPS Unlock podcast, we begin in Kazakhstan, where a new political party has appeared just ahead of parliamentary elections expected later this year.
The party is called Adilet, meaning “justice,” and its sudden emergence has already raised familiar questions about how political competition works in Kazakhstan. Its leader, Aibek Dadebay, was until very recently head of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s administration, which makes it hard to treat Adilet as a spontaneous grassroots force. Its platform closely echoes Tokayev’s own language of order, progress, responsibility, patriotism and a “Just Kazakhstan”. The more interesting question may be what Adilet’s arrival means for Amanat, the long-dominant party of power formerly known as Nur Otan.
We then turn to Victory Day and the politics of memory across Central Asia. Tokayev and Uzbekistan’s Shavkat Mirziyoyev attended the May 9 parade in Moscow, even as the event became more subdued and more politically charged because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. We discuss why Central Asian leaders still travel to Moscow for this commemoration, how their own domestic speeches increasingly stress national contributions to the Soviet victory, and why Russia’s framing of the war as an overwhelmingly Russian triumph remains so contentious.
The conversation also looks at Kyrgyzstan, where a Victory Day concert in Karakol featuring Russian performers drew criticism after it incorporated symbols and rhetoric linked to Russia’s current war in Ukraine. That controversy showed how easily historical memory can slide into present-day propaganda.
In this week’s interview, we spoke with Zhannat Bubekbayeva, author of Two Languages, Two Standards: AI and Linguistic Inequality in Kazakhstan’s Public Services. The paper is the first edition of The Argument, CAPS Unlock’s new monthly policy paper series.
Bubekbayeva tested Kazakhstan’s eGov AI assistant in Kazakh and Russian and found serious disparities. Kazakh-language users often received less complete, less accurate and less natural responses than Russian-language users. We discussed what this says about digital modernisation, procurement standards, language equality and whether Kazakhstan’s AI-powered public services are really serving citizens equally.
Links:
Two Languages, Two Standards: AI and Linguistic Inequality in Kazakhstan’s Public Services — Zhannat Bubekbayeva - https://capsunlock.org/publications/two-languages-two-standards-ai-and-linguistic-inequality-in-kazakhstans-public-services/
Adilet party platform -
Fergana article on how Central Asian leaders framed Victory Day - https://fergana.agency/news/146708/
