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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms supposed to remodel the nation from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament.”

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

The vote will happen on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform bundle 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 said to remodel 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.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have almost 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 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 slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of government and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at the least on the village level. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control 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 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, several proposed provisions would barely prohibit 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 modification, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat get together – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut family members of the president can't hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the higher and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the power to make new legal guidelines, and instead will just approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

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

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

The only proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. 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 Court docket’s makeup, however, with the flexibility to pick the court docket’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the other 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 will convey government bodies closer to the populations they represent. Maybe the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the lack of serious movement on native 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 – nevertheless, the candidates can have been selected by the president. The precise to elect local leadership has been probably the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create selection is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they do not essentially constitute forward movement. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, fairly than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.