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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms intended to transform 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 Organization to quell mass unrest, residents will take part in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were launched. 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 rework Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union tackle on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally unbiased, and the president and their administration have practically 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 local representatives, not less than at the village level. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management 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 household’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly limit the ability of the president. The president should not be a member of a political social gathering, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva called “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. Moreover, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut members of the family 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 homes will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the power to make new legal guidelines, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for selecting deputies to both homes will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly of the Peoples will now solely get to appoint five deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president will be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will probably be elected in keeping with a mixed system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies will probably be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % will be directly elected.

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Courtroom’s makeup, nonetheless, with the flexibility to pick the court docket’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that can deliver government bodies nearer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps probably the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the shortage of serious movement on native illustration 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 – however, the candidates could have been selected by the president. The suitable to elect native leadership has been one of the most constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create selection is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards actual representative authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't essentially represent forward motion. Lots of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that previously existed, reasonably than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.