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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a bundle of reforms intended to rework 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 support from the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, residents will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, only one month after the proposed reforms were released. The reform package deal addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the full 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 management over political decision-making. Kazakhstan’s first step to a super-presidential system was the adoption of a brand 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 began to loosen the president’s control with constitutional amendments in 2017 that slightly redistributed presidential powers to different branches of government and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, no less than at the village degree. Nevertheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his private management 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 structure 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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In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly restrict the facility of the president. The president should not be a member of a political social gathering, 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 party – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan social gathering – on April 26. Moreover, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, main cities, or the capital and close relations of the president can not hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament extra energy vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, but the distribution of power between the upper and decrease houses will shift considerably. The Senate will no longer have the power to make new laws, and instead will just approve or reject legal guidelines passed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the method for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis might be lowered to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly 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 appoint five deputies. The number of deputies appointed by the president will likely be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will be elected according to a blended system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c can be instantly elected.

The only proposed modifications 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 still maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, however, with the ability to select the court’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite 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 may carry authorities bodies nearer to the populations they represent. Maybe the most disappointing side of proposed reforms is the lack of great motion on local 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 – nonetheless, the candidates will have been selected by the president. The suitable to elect native leadership has been probably the most constant demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create selection is finally beauty.

The proposed reforms are vital steps towards real representative authorities in Kazakhstan; however, they do not essentially represent ahead motion. Most of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that previously existed, moderately than materially changing the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.