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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms supposed 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 referred to as protesters terrorists and requested support from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms have been launched. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the whole constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are said to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union deal with on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally unbiased, 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 structure 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 started to loosen the president’s control with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, not less than on the village level. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private 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 sign of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely limit the ability of the president. The president should not 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 celebration – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan social gathering – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now 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 more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the higher and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the facility to make new legal guidelines, and instead will just approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for selecting deputies to both houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis might be lowered to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats can 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 will likely be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will likely be elected in line with a combined system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies will be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % will be immediately elected.

The one proposed adjustments 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 powerful influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s makeup, nonetheless, with the flexibility to pick out the court’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the other 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 can bring authorities bodies closer to the populations they signify. Maybe the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the shortage of significant movement on local illustration 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 – however, the candidates can have been chosen by the president. The appropriate to elect local management has been probably the most consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create choice is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't essentially represent forward motion. Lots of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, quite than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.