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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms supposed to rework the nation 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 support from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the total 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 strong parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union tackle on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have almost limitless management over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a brand new constitution 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 began to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the path for the election of native representatives, at the very least on the village stage. However, 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 structure of mentions of elbasy and the First President of the Republic, which some see as a continued sign of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely prohibit the facility of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political social gathering, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva referred to as “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 get together – on April 26. Moreover, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close members of the family of the president can't maintain political posts.

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

First, the Mazhilis will be diminished to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats shall be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly of the Peoples will now only get to appoint five deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president will probably be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in accordance with a blended system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent can be instantly elected.

The one proposed modifications 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 still maintains a robust affect over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, nonetheless, with the ability to pick out the courtroom’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 carry authorities bodies closer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps probably the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of significant motion on local illustration 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 chosen by the president. The proper to elect local leadership has been one of the most constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this try to create selection is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are important steps toward real representative authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they do not essentially constitute forward motion. Lots of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, moderately than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.