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

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

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

The vote will happen on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform bundle 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 mentioned to remodel Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are solely nominally unbiased, 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 additional consolidated his personal 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 other branches of government and opened the path for the election of local representatives, at least on the village degree. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management over Kazakhstan’s politics by together with 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 sign of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly limit the facility of the president. The president should not be a member of a political get together, 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 occasion – 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 shut relations of the president can not maintain political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but the distribution of power between the upper and decrease homes will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the facility to make new laws, and as a substitute will just approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for selecting deputies to both homes will change. 

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

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

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong affect over the Constitutional Court docket’s make-up, nevertheless, with the ability to pick the court docket’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will convey government bodies closer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack 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 will have been chosen by the president. The suitable 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 vital steps toward actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; however, they do not necessarily represent forward movement. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, reasonably than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.