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

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

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev known as protesters terrorists and requested help 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 happen on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the whole 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.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally unbiased, 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 constitution 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 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 path for the election of native representatives, at the very least at the village level. Nonetheless, 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 structure 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, several proposed provisions would slightly restrict 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 referred to 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 party – on April 26. Moreover, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close members of the family of the president cannot 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 power between the upper and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the power to make new laws, and as an alternative will just approve or reject legal guidelines handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will likely be decreased to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These 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 will probably be reduced from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies can be elected based on a combined system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies shall be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 percent might be instantly elected.

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

Tokayev has emphasized the importance of native governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that will convey government bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of proposed reforms is the lack of serious motion on local illustration 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 could have been selected by the president. The fitting to elect local management has been probably the most consistent calls for from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create choice is ultimately beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps towards real representative government in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't necessarily constitute ahead motion. Lots of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that previously existed, fairly than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.