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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms meant to transform the country 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 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 happen on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package 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 stated to transform Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

A super-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally independent, and the president and their administration have practically unlimited control over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a new constitution 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 started to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the trail for the election of local representatives, at the least at the village level. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control 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 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 limit the power of the president. The president should not 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 shut family members of the president can not hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of power between the upper and decrease houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the power to make new laws, and as a substitute will just approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will be diminished to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats can be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now only get to nominate five deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president might be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in response to a blended system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % shall be immediately elected.

The only proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court till the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful affect over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nonetheless, with the power to pick the court docket’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 will convey authorities our bodies closer to the populations they signify. Perhaps probably the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of significant movement 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 will have been chosen by the president. The precise to elect native leadership has been one of the consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create alternative is ultimately cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards real representative government in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they do not essentially represent ahead motion. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, slightly than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.