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 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 support from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, citizens will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the full 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 strong parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one the place parliaments and courts are solely 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 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 began to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of local representatives, not less than at the village stage. 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 constitution of mentions of elbasy and the First President of the Republic, which some see as a continued sign of the Nazarbayev household’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would slightly limit the power of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political occasion, 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 occasion – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan social gathering – on April 26. Moreover, 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 cannot maintain political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, but the distribution of power between the upper and lower houses will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the power to make new legal guidelines, and as a substitute will just approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to each homes will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies can be elected based on a blended system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies will be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % will likely be directly elected.

The only proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nonetheless, with the flexibility to pick the courtroom’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasised the importance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that may convey authorities our bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Perhaps 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 – however, the candidates may have been chosen by the president. The correct to elect native leadership has been one of the most consistent calls for from Almaty residents, and this try and create alternative is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward real consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they do not necessarily represent forward movement. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, relatively than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.