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

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

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms had been released. The reform package deal 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 rework Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally independent, and the president and their administration have nearly limitless 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 slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the path for the election of local representatives, at the very least at the village degree. Nonetheless, 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 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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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely restrict the ability of the president. The president should not be a member of a political celebration, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva referred to as “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this modification, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat party – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan get together – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut members of the family of the president can not hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the higher and lower homes will shift considerably. The Senate will no longer have the power to make new laws, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for selecting deputies to each homes will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats will likely be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly of the Peoples will now solely get to nominate 5 deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president might be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies might be elected in keeping with a mixed system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c might be immediately elected.

The one proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, however, with the power to pick the courtroom’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may deliver government our bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Maybe the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of serious motion on native 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 correct to elect native management has been some of the constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this try and create selection is finally cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward actual representative authorities in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they do not necessarily constitute ahead motion. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, moderately than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.