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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms meant to rework 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 support 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, only one month after the proposed reforms had been released. The reform package 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 said to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally unbiased, 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 structure 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 began to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at least on the village stage. However, 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 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 prohibit the ability of the president. The president should not be a member of a political party, 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 celebration – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan social gathering – on April 26. Additionally, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close relations of the president can't maintain political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the higher and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the ability to make new laws, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies might be elected in response to a blended system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies will be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent will be instantly elected.

The one proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a robust affect over the Constitutional Courtroom’s makeup, however, with the ability to select the court docket’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other 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 can convey government bodies closer to the populations they represent. Maybe essentially the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the dearth of serious movement on native 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 – nonetheless, the candidates will have been selected by the president. The right to elect native leadership has been probably the most consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create selection is ultimately cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards real representative government in Kazakhstan; however, they do not essentially represent ahead motion. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, somewhat than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.