A saddle with no rider

Yesterday, for the second Irad Day running, the grey stallion Zharkyn led the mounted honour guard through Government Square without a rider. His groom walked at his head. On his back was the Governor's parade saddle, empty. On the reviewing stand, Lieutenant Governor Aidar Maksat took the salute.

The Office of the Governor says Zharkyn leads the parade “in the Governor's place”. It is a careful phrase. It does not say why the Governor is not in his own place. Erlan Toktarov has not appeared in public since July 2024. Twenty months on, the government has published no medical statement, no photograph and no explanation, and the Mejlis has declined to ask for one.

A symbol nobody chose

Iradis know what a riderless horse means. The Fallen Rider, the inverted horseshoe on the flag, is the memorial to the martyrs of 1916, the purges and the civil wars, and at funerals the dead man's horse is led with his saddle reversed. On opposition forums yesterday, many read the empty saddle as an allusion to it. The saddle was not reversed. The government has not commented.

We do not know what the Governor's office intended. Perhaps nothing more than a horse that has led the parade since 2019 and would have looked odd standing in the stable. But a government that will not say where the Governor is cannot complain when citizens read its symbols for themselves.

The question that remains

The Elective Governor Acts say the Lieutenant Governor acts for an absent or incapacitated Governor. They do not say who decides whether the Governor is absent or incapacitated, or for how long. A petition asking the Supreme Court to rule on that question has waited since the spring for a hearing. Until it is answered, a horse will go on standing in for the man the law says governs Irad.