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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms intended to transform the country from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament.”

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev known as protesters terrorists and requested assist from the Russian-backed Collective Safety 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 bundle addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the full constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are said to remodel 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 where parliaments and courts are only nominally independent, and the president and their administration have practically unlimited management over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a 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 slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of presidency and opened the path for the election of local representatives, at the very least at the village stage. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal management over Kazakhstan’s politics by including provisions that protected him as “elbasy,” or chief 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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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly restrict the ability 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 amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat occasion – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan social gathering – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut family members of the president cannot maintain political posts.

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

First, the Mazhilis will be lowered to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats might be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to appoint 5 deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president shall be decreased from 15 to 10.

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

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. 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 influence over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, nevertheless, with the ability to select the courtroom’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasised the significance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that can bring authorities bodies nearer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe probably the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of great movement on local illustration 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 can have been selected by the president. The suitable to elect native management has been one of the vital constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create alternative is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't essentially represent ahead movement. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, reasonably than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.