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

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

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have 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 transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union tackle on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, 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 new structure 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 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 very least on 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 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, several proposed provisions would barely restrict the ability of the president. The president should not be a member of a political social gathering, 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 party – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Additionally, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut family members of the president can't maintain political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more 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 considerably. The Senate will no longer have the ability to make new legal guidelines, and as a substitute will just approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to both homes will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will probably be diminished to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats shall 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 likely be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will likely be elected based on a mixed system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c might be instantly elected.

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong affect over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, however, with the power to pick out the courtroom’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other 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 can deliver government bodies nearer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe probably the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the dearth of serious movement 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 – nonetheless, the candidates will have been selected by the president. The appropriate to elect native leadership has been one of the most constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this try to create selection is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't essentially constitute forward motion. Most of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, rather than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.