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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms intended to remodel 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 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 happen on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms had been 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 stated to rework Kazakhstan from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a powerful parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

A brilliant-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 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 local representatives, at least at the village level. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal management 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 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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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly restrict the power of the president. The president should not be a member of a political party, 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 social gathering – a rebranded version of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan celebration – on April 26. Moreover, the president can not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close family members of the president can not hold political posts.

Several proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will stay bicameral, but the distribution of energy between the higher and lower homes will shift considerably. The Senate will now not have the ability to make new laws, and as a substitute will just approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis can be diminished to 98 deputies, following the abolition of 9 seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. Those seats shall be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly of the Peoples will now only get to nominate 5 deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president can be lowered from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies can be elected in accordance with a combined system. Seventy % of Mazhilis deputies can be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 % might be instantly elected.

The only proposed modifications to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Court. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom till the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president still maintains a powerful affect over the Constitutional Court’s makeup, however, with the ability to pick the courtroom’s chairman and 4 of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite three.

Tokayev has emphasised the importance of local governance, marked by the first-ever direct election of village akims and plans to introduce three new oblasts that can bring government bodies nearer to the populations they characterize. Perhaps the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the shortage of great motion on native illustration 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 may have been chosen by the president. The precise to elect native management has been one of the vital consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create alternative is ultimately beauty.

The proposed reforms are necessary steps toward actual consultant government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they do not necessarily constitute forward movement. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, relatively than materially altering the relationship between state and society, as Tokayev claims.