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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms supposed 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 called protesters terrorists and requested assist from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, citizens will take part in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will happen on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms had been released. The reform bundle addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the entire constitutional articles – and was developed by a working group that Tokayev established in March. The reforms are stated 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.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely 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 new constitution in 1995 that was pushed by Nursultan Nazarbayev after dissolving an uncooperative parliament. Nazarbayev further consolidated his private 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 local representatives, at the least on the village degree. However, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal management over Kazakhstan’s politics by together with 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 signal of the Nazarbayev family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would barely prohibit the ability of the president. The president should not be a member of a political party, 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 celebration – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close members of the family of the president cannot maintain political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the higher and decrease homes will shift considerably. The Senate will not have the ability to make new laws, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for choosing deputies to both homes will change. 

First, the Mazhilis shall be lowered to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will probably be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly 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 likely be elected in accordance with a combined system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c will probably be straight elected.

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court docket. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong affect over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nevertheless, with the flexibility to pick the courtroom’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that can convey government bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the dearth of serious motion on local 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 – however, the candidates may have been selected by the president. The precise to elect local management has been some of the constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create selection is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards real consultant government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they do not essentially represent forward movement. Lots of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, quite than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.