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 referred to as protesters terrorists and requested support 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, just one month after the proposed reforms have been launched. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the overall 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 tackle on March 16.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally independent, and the president and their administration have practically limitless control 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 private 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 presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, not less than on the village degree. However, 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 slightly prohibit the power of the president. The president should not be a member of a political get together, which member of the working group Sara Idrysheva known as “the bravest step of our esteemed president.” In anticipation of this modification, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat social gathering – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Moreover, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and shut members of the family of the president cannot hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of power between the upper and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the power to make new legal guidelines, and as an alternative will simply approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for selecting deputies to each homes will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies shall be elected according to a combined system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c can 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 until the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong influence over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, nonetheless, with the power to pick out the court docket’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasised the significance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may carry authorities bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe probably the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the lack of serious 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 – nonetheless, the candidates will have been selected by the president. The correct to elect native leadership has been some of the constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this try to create choice is in the end cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't essentially constitute ahead motion. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, reasonably than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.