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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms intended to remodel the country from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament.”

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

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were 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 mentioned to transform 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 super-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have practically 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 further consolidated his personal powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev began to loosen the president’s control with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of local representatives, a minimum of on the village degree. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control 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 constitution of mentions of elbasy and the First President of the Republic, which some see as a continued signal of the Nazarbayev household’s fall from grace. 

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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely restrict the ability of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political get together, 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 occasion – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan get together – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close members of the family of the president can't maintain political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the upper and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the facility to make new legal guidelines, and instead will simply approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to both houses will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies might be elected according to a combined system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c might be directly elected.

The one proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court docket until the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Court docket’s makeup, nonetheless, with the power to pick the court’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite 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 bodies nearer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the shortage of serious 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 may have been selected by the president. The right to elect local management has been one of the constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create alternative is ultimately beauty.

The proposed reforms are vital steps toward actual representative government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't necessarily represent ahead movement. Many of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, rather than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.