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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms supposed to transform 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 help from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization 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 were launched. The reform package 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 said to rework Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union tackle on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have practically limitless 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 personal 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 local representatives, at least on the village level. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private control over Kazakhstan’s politics by including 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 signal of the Nazarbayev household’s fall from grace. 

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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly prohibit the ability 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 get together – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Moreover, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close relations of the president can't hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the higher and lower houses will shift considerably. The Senate will not have the ability to make new legal guidelines, and instead will just approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for selecting deputies to both houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will be reduced to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats might be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now only get to nominate 5 deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies might be elected based on a combined system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies will probably be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c will probably be immediately elected.

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket until the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a robust affect over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nevertheless, with the ability to pick the courtroom’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite 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 may deliver government bodies closer to the populations they signify. Maybe probably the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the dearth of significant 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 – nonetheless, the candidates will have been selected by the president. The fitting to elect local management has been probably the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create selection is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are essential steps towards real representative government in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they do not essentially represent forward movement. Lots of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, fairly than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.