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 nation from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament.”

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

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the entire 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 robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union tackle on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally unbiased, and the president and their administration have almost 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 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 slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of government and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at least at the village degree. Nevertheless, 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 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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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would barely prohibit the power of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political celebration, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva called “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat party – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close family members of the president can't maintain political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of power between the upper and decrease houses will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the ability to make new legal guidelines, and as a substitute will just approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for choosing deputies to both homes will change. 

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

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

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful affect over the Constitutional Court docket’s make-up, however, with the power to pick out the court docket’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasised the importance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may deliver authorities bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the shortage of serious 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 – nevertheless, the candidates could have been chosen by the president. The suitable to elect native leadership has been one of the consistent calls for from Almaty residents, and this try and create selection is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards actual consultant government in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't necessarily represent ahead movement. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, slightly than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.