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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms intended to transform the nation 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 help from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization to quell mass unrest, residents will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms were launched. The reform package 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 rework Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union handle on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are only nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have nearly limitless management over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a new structure 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 government and opened the path for the election of native representatives, at least on the village stage. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private 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 family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would slightly prohibit the power of the president. The president shouldn't 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 amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat get together – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party – on April 26. Moreover, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and shut family members of the president can not hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but the distribution of power between the higher and decrease houses will shift considerably. The Senate will no longer have the ability to make new legal guidelines, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for choosing deputies to both houses will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies might be elected in line with a mixed system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies will probably be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % shall be instantly elected.

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong affect over the Constitutional Court docket’s make-up, nevertheless, with the ability to select the court docket’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will carry authorities our bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Maybe the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the dearth of significant movement 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 – nonetheless, the candidates can have been chosen by the president. The right to elect local management has been one of the crucial constant demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create alternative is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; however, they don't essentially represent forward movement. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, quite than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.