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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms meant to remodel the country 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 Group to quell mass unrest, citizens 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 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 remodel 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.

A super-presidential system is one where 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 constitution in 1995 that was pushed by Nursultan Nazarbayev after dissolving an uncooperative parliament. Nazarbayev further consolidated his personal powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev began to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, at the least at the village stage. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private 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, several proposed provisions would barely prohibit the facility of the president. The president should not be a member of a political celebration, 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 celebration – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and shut relations of the president can not maintain political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of power between the upper and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will not have the ability to make new legal guidelines, and instead will simply approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the method for selecting deputies to both houses will change. 

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

Second, Mazhilis deputies shall be elected in line with a blended system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies will be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % will probably be immediately elected.

The one proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom until the adoption of the 1995 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong affect over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nevertheless, with the flexibility to pick the court’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 carry authorities our bodies closer to the populations they symbolize. Maybe the most disappointing aspect 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, main cities, and the capital – however, the candidates can have been chosen by the president. The precise to elect native management has been probably the most consistent calls for from Almaty residents, and this try and create choice is ultimately beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards real representative government in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't essentially represent ahead motion. Many of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that previously existed, moderately than materially changing the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.