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

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

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

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were launched. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the total constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are stated to transform 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 brilliant-presidential system is one where 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 brand new constitution in 1995 that was pushed by Nursultan Nazarbayev after dissolving an uncooperative parliament. Nazarbayev additional consolidated his personal powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev began to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to different branches of government and opened the path for the election of local representatives, no less than on the village stage. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management over Kazakhstan’s politics by together with provisions that protected him as “elbasy,” or leader 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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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely limit the ability of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political get together, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva called “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this modification, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat party – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and shut family members of the president cannot maintain 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 homes will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the ability to make new legal guidelines, and instead will just approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis can be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to nominate five deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president can be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will likely be elected according to a blended system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % will probably be straight elected.

The one proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court till the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s makeup, nonetheless, with the ability to pick the courtroom’s chairman and four 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 will deliver government our bodies closer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the dearth of great 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 will have been selected by the president. The right to elect local management has been one of the crucial constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create alternative is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards real representative government in Kazakhstan; however, they don't necessarily constitute ahead movement. Lots of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, somewhat than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.