Some definitions of kleptocracy introduce the concept of illegality – for example a ‘ rent-seeking state where favouritism happens illegally’ although this poses problems as kleptocratic regimes do not apply the law evenly. Nazarbayeva successfully resisted a UK court process to explain the source of expensive real estate linked to her. The undeniable vast wealth of each of these ‘PEPs’ (politically-exposed person) is explained, they have said, by legitimate personal business earnings and salary. The former head of the Russian state railways Vladimir Yakunin – whose mansion famously had a whole room dedicated to storing his wife’s fur coats – is a good example, as is Dariga Nazarbayeva from Kazakhstan, the eldest daughter of the country’s first president, who rose to the rank of chair of the Senate while sitting on a $595 million fortune. In a true kleptocracy, the oligarchs are the politicians themselves – often referred to as ‘ poligarchs’. Often oligarchs are seen as characteristic of Russia’s kleptocracy, but the Russia of the 1990s was not a kleptocracy as the oligarchs represented a power base outside of the Kremlin, one that Putin had to dismantle by exiling or jailing those who opposed him. The most successful kleptocracies are those which, rather than strip the house bare, occupy it and allow other members of the household to generate their own income while paying ‘rent’ to the landlord – the godfather-like head of state
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