Family Fight Leaves Kazakhstan's Power Couple on the Outside

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- For years, Rakhat Aliyev and his wife, Dariga Nazarbayeva, were the power couple of Kazakhstan, building empires in media, banking and politics under the protective wing of Papa -- President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Rakhat, as everyone here calls him, was a feared mandarin-mogul, widely viewed as the scheming but untouchable son-in-law. Dariga, the eldest of the president's three daughters, was a rising power in parliament, a mezzo-soprano who set aside operatic ambitions for the cut and thrust of politicking.

Things have changed quickly in this energy-rich nation on the Central Asian steppe, where the United States, Russia and China jockey for influence and access to oil and gas.

Aliyev, 45, is now in exile in Vienna fighting a Kazakh extradition request on charges of kidnapping and other crimes. Nazarbayeva, 44, who recently divorced Aliyev, has retreated into silence and been summarily removed as a candidate for reelection to parliament in upcoming elections.

In the clannish, conspiratorial world of Kazakh politics, it is difficult to sort through the murk of allegations and counter-allegations that led to this crackup. The government says Aliyev morphed into a kidnapping thug and extortionist; he denies that and says his real offense was to tell his father-in-law that he planned to challenge him for the presidency.

According to Kazakh politicians and analysts, a single object lesson has emerged from the family debris: Kazakhstan has one, and only one, center of power, the 67-year-old Nazarbayev. "Everything in this country depends on the decision of one person, the president," said Amirzhan Kossanov, an opposition leader. "Rakhat forgot that, and now he pays the price."

The case has caused deep embarrassment for the government of Nazarbayev, a former Communist Party boss who has been in power since shortly before Kazakhstan became an independent nation with the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. He is trying to shed an image of authoritarianism and win for Kazakhstan the prestige of chairing for a year the 56-country Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The unraveling of the first family has many beginnings. The most recent dates to Jan. 18, when the government contends that Aliyev kidnapped two senior executives of Nurbank, one of Kazakhstan's leading banks. Aliyev was a shareholder at the institution, as was his father; his 22-year-old son was on the bank's board.

Abilmazhen Gilimov, then the bank's chairman, and Zholdas Timraliyev, his deputy, were allegedly tricked into getting into a car, then taken to a sauna outside Almaty, Kazakhstan's commercial capital. Gilimov later alleged that Aliyev then came to the two men and attempted to intimidate them into signing over a prized building in the city to his control.

"I can do whatever I want in this country," boasted Aliyev, according to a statement Gilimov gave to police. "Now we'll put a stamp in your passports saying that you crossed the border and that you are flying to Kiev and we'll bury you here. And then let the police and your relatives look for you in Ukraine for the rest of their lives -- they will never find you!"

The two were released after 24 hours when, Gilimov said, he managed to make a cellphone call to his family, leading a guard to let them go. Gilimov's deputy later disappeared.

"This is a fabricated criminal case," Aliyev said in a telephone interview from Vienna.