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

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

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev known as protesters terrorists and requested assist from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, residents will take part in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms had been launched. The reform bundle addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the total 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 address on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally unbiased, and the president and their administration have practically 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 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 at the village level. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal management 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 sign of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely restrict the facility of the president. The president should not be a member of a political celebration, 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 social gathering – 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 relations of the president cannot 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 power between the upper and lower houses will shift considerably. The Senate will not have the ability to make new laws, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to both homes will change. 

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

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

The only proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nevertheless, with the flexibility to select the court docket’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite 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 will deliver government our bodies closer to the populations they represent. Maybe essentially the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the dearth of significant motion on native 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 chosen by the president. The precise to elect native management has been probably the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create alternative is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards actual representative government in Kazakhstan; however, they don't necessarily constitute ahead movement. Many of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, reasonably than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.