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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms meant to remodel the country 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 assist from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform package deal 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 rework 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 the place parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have almost 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 control with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the path for the election of local representatives, a minimum of on the village level. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management over Kazakhstan’s politics by together with provisions that protected him as “elbasy,” or chief of the nation.

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The proposed constitutional reforms strip the constitution 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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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely limit the power of the president. The president should not be a member of a political social gathering, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva called “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat celebration – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan get together – 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.

Several proposed measures give parliament more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the upper and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will not have the facility to make new legal guidelines, and as an alternative will just approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for choosing deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will be diminished to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats shall 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 likely be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in response to a blended system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c shall be immediately elected.

The one proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Court docket’s make-up, nevertheless, with the ability to pick out the court’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may convey government our bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the dearth of serious motion 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 – nevertheless, the candidates will have been chosen by the president. The best to elect native leadership has been one of the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create selection is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward real consultant government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't necessarily represent forward motion. Many of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, reasonably than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.