If you look at what’s been done in the past few years with the subsoil laws, and now the banking laws, there’s a pattern there: the GoK has special rights and privileges and exercising them ends up putting property that was previously private into the hands of the state.

However, this isn’t “nationalization” since nationalization is bad, and they always have a reason (e.g., subsoil resources are strategic, violation of banking laws, etc).

I’d say it’s nationalization regardless of what the reason is, but that’s just me.

However, every other bank that has been bailed out in Kazakhstan so far as approached the government and reached an amicable agreement. BTA was taken over without communication with the board, and Ablyazov removed.

One interpretation is that BTA really was worse off than any of the other banks, and this triggered the appropriate clause in the banking law.

Another is that BTA, being most closely associated with what little political opposition exists in Kazakhstan, was singled out for treatment that was different in execution, if not in substance, from the other banks.

Bottom line: of the four largest banks, all are in trouble, and all have gotten help. The two most closely associated with political opponents of the regime have lost control due to the shares taken; I believe (correct me if my recollection is incorrect) that the other two have not.

(Although again, the percentage of shares held by the government in banks whose owners are known to be friendly to the regime isn’t really the point…)