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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms supposed to rework the country from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament.”

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev referred to as protesters terrorists and requested help 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 happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have been launched. The reform bundle addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the full constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are stated to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust 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 solely nominally independent, 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 brand new constitution in 1995 that was pushed by Nursultan Nazarbayev after dissolving an uncooperative parliament. Nazarbayev further consolidated his personal powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev began to loosen the president’s control with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the trail for the election of local representatives, a minimum of at the village level. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private 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 structure 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 slightly limit the power of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political party, 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 party – on April 26. Moreover, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and shut relations of the president can not maintain political posts.

A number of 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 now not have the ability to make new laws, and instead will just approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will likely be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats shall be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly of the Peoples will now only get to appoint 5 deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president might be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies might be elected in keeping with a combined system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % shall be directly elected.

The one proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s makeup, however, with the ability to select the courtroom’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 our bodies closer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the dearth of great movement on local 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 can have been selected by the president. The appropriate to elect local management has been one of the vital constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create selection is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are essential steps toward actual representative authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't essentially constitute ahead movement. Most of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, moderately than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.