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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms supposed 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 called protesters terrorists and requested help from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package deal 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 mentioned to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, 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 brand 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 began to loosen the president’s management 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 the 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, several proposed provisions would slightly limit the ability of the president. The president should not be a member of a political celebration, 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 social gathering – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Moreover, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut members of the family of the president can not maintain political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, but the distribution of power between the higher and lower houses will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the ability to make new laws, and instead will simply approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for choosing deputies to both homes will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies will likely be elected in line with a mixed system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies will likely be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent shall be directly elected.

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a strong influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s makeup, nevertheless, with the flexibility to select the courtroom’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 will carry authorities our bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the dearth of significant movement 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 selected by the president. The correct to elect native leadership has been one of the crucial constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this try to create selection is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward actual consultant government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't necessarily constitute ahead motion. 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.