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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package deal of reforms supposed to rework the nation from a super-presidential system to a “presidential system with a strong 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, 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 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 said to remodel 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.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally unbiased, and the president and their administration have almost 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 further consolidated his personal powers with constitutional amendments in 1998, 2007, and 2011.

Nazarbayev started to loosen the president’s management with constitutional amendments in 2017 that barely redistributed presidential powers to other branches of presidency and opened the trail for the election of native representatives, no less than on the village stage. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal control 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 constitution 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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Along with sidelining Nazarbayev, several proposed provisions would slightly prohibit the facility of the president. The president shouldn't be a member of a political party, 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 get together – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan occasion – on April 26. Additionally, the president can now not override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and close relations of the president can not hold political posts.

A number of proposed measures give parliament more power vis-a-vis the president. Kazakhstan’s parliament will remain bicameral, however the distribution of energy between the upper and lower houses will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the ability to make new laws, and as a substitute will simply approve or reject laws handed by the Mazhilis. Furthermore, the process for selecting deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will likely be reduced to 98 deputies, following the abolition of nine seats appointed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. These seats will be transferred to the Senate, and the Assembly of the Peoples will now solely get to appoint five deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president can be reduced from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies will likely be elected in accordance with a mixed system. Seventy p.c of Mazhilis deputies will be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c shall be straight elected.

The one proposed changes 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 still maintains a robust influence over the Constitutional Court docket’s makeup, nonetheless, with the power to pick out the court’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the opposite 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 can deliver authorities our bodies nearer to the populations they symbolize. Perhaps essentially the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the shortage of serious movement 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 chosen by the president. The right to elect native management has been one of the most consistent demands from Almaty residents, and this attempt to create selection is ultimately cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are vital steps toward real consultant government in Kazakhstan; nevertheless, they don't essentially constitute forward motion. Lots of the amendments are merely reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential power that beforehand existed, slightly than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.