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

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

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev referred to as protesters terrorists and requested help 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 take place on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms had been launched. The reform bundle 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 remodel Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust 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 almost unlimited 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 additional 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 slightly redistributed presidential powers to other branches of government and opened the path for the election of native representatives, a minimum of on the village stage. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal management over Kazakhstan’s politics by together with 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 family’s fall from grace. 

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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would barely limit 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 amendment, Tokayev stepped down as chairman of the Amanat get together – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Additionally, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and shut relations of the president can not hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament extra power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but 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 as a substitute will simply approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for choosing deputies to each homes will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to nominate five deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president can be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies can be elected in response to a mixed system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % will be instantly elected.

The one proposed adjustments to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Court until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a powerful affect over the Constitutional Courtroom’s make-up, nevertheless, with the flexibility to select the court’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasised the importance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will carry government bodies nearer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the dearth of great 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 may have been selected by the president. The precise to elect native leadership has been one of the crucial consistent calls for from Almaty residents, and this try and create choice is ultimately beauty.

The proposed reforms are important steps towards real representative authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't necessarily represent ahead movement. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, fairly than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.