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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms supposed to remodel the country from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament.”

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called protesters terrorists and requested help from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Group 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 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 mentioned to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally unbiased, and the president and their administration have practically limitless control over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a new structure in 1995 that was pushed by Nursultan Nazarbayev after dissolving an uncooperative parliament. Nazarbayev further consolidated his personal 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 different branches of government and opened the path for the election of native representatives, at least on the village stage. 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 household’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would barely limit 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. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close relations of the president cannot hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament extra power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the higher and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the power to make new legal guidelines, and as a substitute will just approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for selecting deputies to both homes will change. 

First, the Mazhilis might be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will likely be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly of the Peoples will now solely get to nominate five deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will likely be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will likely be elected in line with a mixed system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies shall be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c will be directly elected.

The one proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket till the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Court docket’s makeup, however, with the flexibility to select the court’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will carry government our bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the shortage of great motion on native representation 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 will have been chosen by the president. The right to elect native leadership has been one of the crucial consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create choice is finally cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; however, they do not necessarily constitute ahead movement. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, reasonably than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.