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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms meant to transform 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 Security Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform bundle 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 stated to rework Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union deal with on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally unbiased, and the president and their administration have nearly unlimited 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 additional consolidated his private powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev started to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the path for the election of native representatives, at the very least at the village stage. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal 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 sign of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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Along with 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 social gathering, 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 model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close members of the family of the president can not maintain political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of power between the higher and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the facility to make new laws, and instead will simply approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for selecting deputies to both homes 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 might be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to appoint 5 deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president can be reduced from 15 to 10.

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

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom until the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nevertheless, with the flexibility to pick out the courtroom’s chairman and 4 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 will bring government bodies nearer to the populations they signify. Maybe 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, major cities, and the capital – however, the candidates could have been selected by the president. The best to elect native leadership has been one of the constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create choice is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are important steps toward real representative authorities in Kazakhstan; however, they don't necessarily represent ahead motion. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, somewhat than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.