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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms intended to remodel the nation from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust 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 take part 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 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 robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have practically limitless 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 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 barely redistributed presidential powers to other branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of local representatives, not less than at the village level. Nonetheless, 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 sign of the Nazarbayev household’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly restrict the power 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 modification, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat social gathering – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party – on April 26. Moreover, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut family members of the president can not hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the higher and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the facility to make new laws, and as an alternative will simply approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will probably be lowered to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Meeting 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 shall be reduced from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected according to a mixed system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies shall be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent will probably be immediately elected.

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong influence over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nevertheless, with the power to pick the court’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite 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 can carry government bodies nearer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the shortage of significant motion 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 – nevertheless, the candidates can have been chosen by the president. The fitting to elect native leadership has been one of the constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create selection is finally cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are essential steps toward actual representative authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't necessarily represent ahead motion. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, reasonably than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.