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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms intended 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 assist from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, residents will take part in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform bundle 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 stated to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union deal with on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have practically 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 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 slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of government and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at the very least at the village degree. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control 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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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly prohibit the facility of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political get together, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva referred to as “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat occasion – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan get together – on April 26. Moreover, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close relations 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 remain bicameral, but the distribution of power between the upper and decrease houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the ability to make new laws, and as a substitute will just approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for choosing deputies to both houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis might be reduced to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats can be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to appoint five deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president will likely be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will likely be elected in accordance with a combined system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies will probably be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent can be instantly elected.

The one proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong affect over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nonetheless, with the flexibility to pick the court’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasised the significance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will convey government our bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the shortage of serious motion on local 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 may have been selected by the president. The appropriate to elect local leadership has been one of the vital consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create choice is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards actual representative government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't necessarily constitute forward motion. Most of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, relatively than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.