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

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

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

The vote will take place on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the full constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are stated to remodel Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union deal with on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally independent, and the president and their administration have nearly unlimited control over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a brand 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 control with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the trail for the election of local representatives, no less than on the village stage. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management over Kazakhstan’s politics by including provisions that protected him as “elbasy,” or leader 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 signal of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly prohibit the ability of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political party, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva known as “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat social gathering – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party – on April 26. Additionally, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close relations of the president cannot hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the upper and decrease houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the power to make new legal guidelines, and instead will just approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for choosing deputies to each homes will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected according to a combined system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies will be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent can be straight elected.

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Court docket’s make-up, nevertheless, with the power to select the court docket’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will carry authorities our bodies nearer to the populations they signify. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the dearth of serious motion on local illustration for residents of Kazakhstan’s largest cities. If the referendum passes, Kazakhstanis will get to vote for akims of oblasts, main cities, and the capital – however, the candidates could have been selected by the president. The precise to elect native leadership has been probably the most consistent calls for from Almaty residents, and this try to create selection is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are vital steps toward real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; however, they don't essentially represent ahead movement. Most of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, somewhat than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.