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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms intended to rework the country from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament.”

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

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package deal 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 stated to rework 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.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have practically unlimited management 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 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 barely redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at least at the village stage. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control 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 signal of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely limit the ability of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political celebration, 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 party – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – 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't hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the upper and lower homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the facility to make new legal guidelines, and as an alternative will simply approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will probably be reduced 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 shall be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in response to a mixed system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies will probably be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent will likely be directly elected.

The only proposed changes 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 nonetheless maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nonetheless, with the flexibility to pick the court docket’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will convey authorities bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of serious motion on local 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 – nevertheless, the candidates will have been selected by the president. The precise to elect local leadership has been one of the most consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create choice is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are essential steps towards actual consultant government in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they do not necessarily represent forward movement. Most of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, moderately than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.