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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms supposed 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 called protesters terrorists and requested assist from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Group 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 released. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the overall constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are stated to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally unbiased, and the president and their administration have nearly 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 further consolidated his private powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev started to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at least at the village level. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private control 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 signal of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would slightly limit the power of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political occasion, 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 occasion – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Additionally, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut relations of the president can't hold 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 homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the ability to make new legal guidelines, and as an alternative will simply approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for selecting deputies to both houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will likely be diminished to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats can be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to nominate 5 deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will probably be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies shall be elected in response to a blended system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies will probably be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c might be directly elected.

The one proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong affect over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nevertheless, with the flexibility to select the court’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasised the significance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may carry authorities bodies nearer to the populations they signify. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of great 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 – nonetheless, the candidates may have been selected by the president. The precise to elect native management has been one of the vital consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try and create selection is ultimately beauty.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they do not necessarily constitute forward movement. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that previously existed, reasonably than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.