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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms supposed to transform the nation 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 help from the Russian-backed Collective Safety 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 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 said to remodel Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have nearly limitless management over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a 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 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 trail for the election of native representatives, at least at the village stage. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal 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 household’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 occasion, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva known as “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this modification, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat celebration – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan social gathering – on April 26. Moreover, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close family members of the president can't hold political posts.

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

First, the Mazhilis will likely be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats will probably be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now only get to nominate 5 deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president will be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies can be elected in accordance with a combined system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % will likely be directly elected.

The one proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful affect over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nevertheless, with the ability to select the court’s chairman and four 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 authorities bodies closer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the dearth of serious motion on native illustration 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 – nonetheless, the candidates will have been chosen by the president. The suitable to elect native leadership has been one of the vital consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create choice is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards actual representative government in Kazakhstan; however, they don't essentially constitute ahead motion. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that previously existed, moderately than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.