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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms meant to remodel the nation from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a robust parliament.”

Six months after Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev known as protesters terrorists and requested help from the Russian-backed Collective Safety 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 released. 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 transform 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.

An excellent-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are only nominally independent, and the president and their administration have nearly unlimited management 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 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 government and opened the path for the election of native representatives, at least on the village stage. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control over Kazakhstan’s politics by together with 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 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 shouldn't be a member of a political celebration, 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 party – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Moreover, 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.

Several proposed measures give parliament more energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the upper and decrease homes will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the facility to make new laws, and as an alternative will simply approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for choosing deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis can be reduced to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Meeting of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats can be transferred to the Senate, and the Meeting of the Peoples will now solely get to appoint 5 deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will likely be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected in line with a mixed system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies will be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c can be immediately 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 structure, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a powerful influence over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, nevertheless, with the flexibility to pick out the court docket’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 will carry authorities our bodies nearer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the shortage of significant motion 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 can have been selected by the president. The fitting to elect local management has been one of the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create alternative is in the end beauty.

The proposed reforms are essential steps towards actual consultant authorities in Kazakhstan; nonetheless, they don't necessarily constitute forward movement. Many of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, relatively than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.