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 powerful parliament.”

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called protesters terrorists and requested assist from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization 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 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 said to remodel 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 the place parliaments and courts are solely nominally impartial, and the president and their administration have almost limitless control over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a 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 different branches of government and opened the trail for the election of local representatives, at the very least at the village stage. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private control over Kazakhstan’s politics by including 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 sign 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 facility of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political occasion, 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 celebration – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Additionally, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close relations of the president can't hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of power between the upper and decrease houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will no longer have the power to make new laws, and as a substitute will just approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for choosing deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis might be lowered to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats will likely 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 will probably be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in response to a mixed system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c will be directly elected.

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

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that can deliver authorities bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps probably the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the lack of significant movement on local 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 – nevertheless, the candidates could have been selected by the president. The right to elect local leadership has been some of the consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this try to create choice is ultimately cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are vital steps toward actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't essentially represent ahead movement. Many of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, relatively than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.