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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms meant to rework 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 assist from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform bundle addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the full constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are mentioned to rework 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 brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have practically unlimited 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 further consolidated his private 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 trail for the election of native representatives, at the very least on the village level. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private 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 sign of the Nazarbayev household’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would slightly limit 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 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 occasion – on April 26. Additionally, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close members of the family of the president can not maintain political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament extra power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of power between the higher and decrease homes will shift considerably. The Senate will no longer have the ability to make new laws, and as an alternative will just approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for selecting deputies to both homes will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in keeping with a combined system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies will probably be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent will be straight elected.

The one proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, 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 out the courtroom’s chairman and four 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 deliver authorities bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps probably the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the shortage of great motion on native 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 chosen by the president. The suitable to elect native leadership has been one of the consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create alternative is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are vital steps toward actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they do not necessarily represent ahead movement. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, somewhat than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.