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

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

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev known as protesters terrorists and requested help 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, only one month after the proposed reforms had been released. 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 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.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have almost 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 additional 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 barely redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, a minimum of on the village level. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management 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 constitution 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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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely prohibit the power of the president. The president should not be a member of a political celebration, 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 version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut members of the family of the president can't hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of power between the higher and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the ability to make new laws, and as an alternative will just approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis shall be diminished to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats will likely be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now only get to appoint five deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will probably be reduced from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will probably be elected in accordance with a mixed system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % can be straight elected.

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nevertheless, with the flexibility to pick out the courtroom’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasised 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 authorities bodies nearer to the populations they signify. Maybe probably the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the dearth of significant motion on local 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 could have been chosen by the president. The proper to elect native management has been one of the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create choice is finally cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't essentially constitute ahead motion. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, moderately than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.