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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms supposed to remodel 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 assist from the Russian-backed Collective Safety 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 have been launched. The reform package 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 mentioned to rework Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have nearly unlimited control 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 additional consolidated his private 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 different branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at the least at the village degree. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management 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 structure 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 restrict the power 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 get together – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close family members 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, but the distribution of power between the higher and lower homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will not have the power to make new legal guidelines, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis might be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now only get to appoint five deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president can be diminished from 15 to 10.

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

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful affect over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, however, with the ability to select the court’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may bring government bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the shortage of significant movement on local representation 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 – nevertheless, the candidates may have been selected by the president. The proper to elect native management has been one of the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create choice is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they do not necessarily constitute ahead motion. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, relatively than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.