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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms meant to transform the nation 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 assist from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, citizens will take part in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms had been released. The reform bundle addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the overall constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are said to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union tackle on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally independent, and the president and their administration have nearly limitless control over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a brand 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 barely redistributed presidential powers to other branches of presidency and opened the path for the election of native representatives, a minimum of at the village degree. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal 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 constitution 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, a number of proposed provisions would slightly restrict the ability of the president. The president should not 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 modification, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat party – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan get together – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main 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 stay bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the higher and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will not have the power to make new legal guidelines, and as an alternative will just approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for choosing deputies to both houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis can be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats might be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now only get to nominate five deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will likely be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies can be elected in response to a mixed system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies will likely be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c will probably be instantly elected.

The one proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court 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, however, with the ability to pick out the court docket’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may bring authorities bodies nearer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of significant 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 – nonetheless, the candidates may have been selected by the president. The correct to elect native leadership has been one of the crucial consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create selection is finally cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards real representative government in Kazakhstan; however, they don't essentially represent ahead movement. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, rather than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.