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

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

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

The vote will take place on June 5, only 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 transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have nearly 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 control with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the path for the election of native representatives, at the least at the village degree. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal 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 structure 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, several proposed provisions would barely prohibit the facility of the president. The president should not be a member of a political party, 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 celebration – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party – on April 26. Additionally, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close family members of the president can't hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament extra power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the higher and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the power to make new legal guidelines, and as an alternative will simply approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for selecting deputies to each homes will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will likely be lowered to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will likely be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to appoint 5 deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president will be reduced from 15 to 10.

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

The one proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court until the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a strong influence over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, however, with the power to select the court’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may carry authorities bodies closer to the populations they characterize. Maybe essentially the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the shortage of great movement 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 – nevertheless, the candidates can have been chosen by the president. The correct to elect local management has been one of the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create alternative is ultimately cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are essential steps toward real representative government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't necessarily represent ahead movement. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, relatively than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.