Tony Blair films video praising former Kazakhstan president for leadership

Tony Blair has appeared in a video praising Kazakhstan's ex-president Nursultan Nazarbayev for his leadership even though human rights groups have accused him of censorship, political persecution and other human rights abuses.

The tribute by the former British prime minister was one of a handful from Western figures made for a Kazakh-organised conference on November 30 designed to gold-plate Mr Nazarbayev’s 30-year legacy.

"That it [Kazakhstan] is a successful and stable country is in no small measure due to the leadership of President Nazarbayev," Mr Blair said in a two-minute video clip aired on the Kazakh state-owned news channel.

"For all the challenges and reforms that are still to come and still necessary, Kazakhstan at this present moment in time can look forward to the future with confidence.”

But in what appears to be a move by Kazakh officials to inflate the prestige of their former leader further, the Russian language dubbing quoted Mr Blair as adding that “it is a great honour for me to express my respect to him”.

A spokesman for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change denied Mr Blair said this.

Mr Blair was a paid adviser to Mr Nazarbayev, 80, for several years from at least 2011. He helped Mr Nazarbayev manage the political fallout in December 2011 when police in Western Kazakhstan shot dead or beat to death at least 14 striking oil workers.

A spokesman for the Tony Blair Institute said Mr Blair’s latest tribute to Mr Nazarbayev was made in a purely personal capacity in praise of the progress Kazakhstan has made since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and for giving up the nuclear weapons it inherited.

“Neither Mr Blair nor the Institute works with Kazakhstan. Mr Blair doesn't work for the former President and is being paid nothing," he told The Telegraph.

Other high-profile leaders who made similarly laudatory videos included Condoleeza Rice, the former US Secretary of State, and Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary General of the United Nations.

Yet human rights groups have long criticised the country for its restrictions on basic liberties, including freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and endemic corruption.

In November, several women in Kazakhstan shaved off their hair in a protest against political repression and, at around the same time that Mr Blair was praising Mr Nazarbayev, the UN was criticising the Kazakh authorities for arbitrarily arresting a lawyer who defended Uighur rights.

Mr Nazarbayev gave up the Kazakh presidency in 2019, although he replaced himself with ally Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and retains a strong influence in the country.

Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, has since been renamed Nur Sultan after Mr Nazarbayev, and an official Day of the First President has been created in his honour.