What’s in Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Referendum? – The Diplomat

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms meant to rework the nation from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament.”

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called protesters terrorists and requested support from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have been launched. The reform package addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the overall constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are said to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union deal with on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have practically limitless management over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a new constitution in 1995 that was pushed by Nursultan Nazarbayev after dissolving an uncooperative parliament. Nazarbayev further consolidated his private powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev started to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the path for the election of native representatives, a minimum of on the village degree. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control over Kazakhstan’s politics by including provisions that protected him as “elbasy,” or chief of the nation.

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The proposed constitutional reforms strip the structure of mentions of elbasy and the First President of the Republic, which some see as a continued sign of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly restrict the facility of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political get together, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva referred to as “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat occasion – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and shut members of the family of the president can not maintain political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the upper and decrease houses will shift considerably. The Senate will no longer have the facility to make new laws, and instead will simply approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to both houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will probably be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will probably be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now only get to nominate 5 deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will probably be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in line with a combined system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c will be instantly elected.

The one proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong influence over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nonetheless, with the power to pick the court docket’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasised the significance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will convey government our bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Maybe probably the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the lack of great movement on native representation for residents of Kazakhstan’s largest cities. If the referendum passes, Kazakhstanis will get to vote for akims of oblasts, major cities, and the capital – however, the candidates can have been selected by the president. The precise to elect native leadership has been probably the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create alternative is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are essential steps towards real representative authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they do not essentially represent ahead movement. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, somewhat than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.