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

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

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev referred to as protesters terrorists and requested help from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, residents will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, only 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 transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union deal with on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally unbiased, 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 new structure in 1995 that was pushed by Nursultan Nazarbayev after dissolving an uncooperative parliament. Nazarbayev further consolidated his personal 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 different branches of presidency and opened the path for the election of native representatives, at the least on the village stage. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control over Kazakhstan’s politics by together with provisions that protected him as “elbasy,” or leader 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 household’s fall from grace. 

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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would barely restrict the facility of the president. The president should not be a member of a political party, 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 celebration – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan get together – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not 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 more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, but the distribution of power between the higher and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will not have the facility to make new laws, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis can be diminished 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 5 deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will be diminished from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies can be elected based on a blended system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies shall be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent shall be immediately 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 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a robust affect over the Constitutional Court docket’s makeup, however, with the power to select the court’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may carry authorities our bodies closer to the populations they characterize. Maybe essentially the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of significant movement on local representation 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 can have been selected by the president. The appropriate to elect native leadership has been probably the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create alternative is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward real representative government in Kazakhstan; however, they don't essentially constitute forward motion. Most of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, somewhat than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.