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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms intended to rework the country from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament.”

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

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package deal 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 powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have almost limitless management 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 began to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to other branches of presidency and opened the path for the election of native representatives, not less than at the village degree. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control 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 constitution 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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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of 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 referred to as “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat party – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan get together – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close relations of the president can not hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the higher and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not 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 selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

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

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

The one proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket until the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nevertheless, with the flexibility to pick out the courtroom’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasised the significance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will carry government bodies closer to the populations they signify. Perhaps probably the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of significant motion 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 – however, the candidates could have been chosen by the president. The precise to elect native leadership has been one of the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create selection is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are vital steps toward real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; however, they don't essentially constitute forward movement. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, relatively than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.