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

On June 5, Kazakhs will vote on a package of reforms intended to remodel 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 help from the Russian-backed Collective Safety Treaty Group to quell mass unrest, residents will participate in a referendum on constitutional reforms. 

The vote will take place on June 5, just one month after the proposed reforms have been released. The reform package addresses 33 separate articles – about one third of the total 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 strong parliament,” per Tokayev’s state of the union address on March 16.

A brilliant-presidential system is one where parliaments and courts are solely nominally impartial, 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 brand 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 started 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 the least at the village stage. Nonetheless, Nazarbayev slyly maintained his personal management over Kazakhstan’s politics by including provisions that protected him as “elbasy,” or chief of the nation.

Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing tales to observe throughout the Asia-Pacific.

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. 

Enjoying this text? Click here to subscribe for full access. Simply $5 a month.

In addition to sidelining Nazarbayev, a number of proposed provisions would slightly limit the ability of the president. The president should not be a member of a political occasion, 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 celebration – a rebranded model of Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party – on April 26. Additionally, the president can no longer override the acts of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital and shut members of the family of the president can't maintain 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 power between the upper and decrease homes will shift somewhat. The Senate will now not have the facility to make new laws, and instead will just approve or reject laws passed by the Mazhilis. Moreover, the process for choosing deputies to each houses will change. 

First, the Mazhilis will 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 appoint five deputies. The variety of deputies appointed by the president will likely be decreased from 15 to 10.

Second, Mazhilis deputies might be elected in accordance with a blended system. Seventy percent of Mazhilis deputies might be chosen by proportional elections, and 30 p.c will probably be straight elected.

The only proposed changes to the judicial system relate to the reestablishment of the Constitutional Courtroom. Kazakhstan had a Constitutional Courtroom until the adoption of the 1995 constitution, which instituted a weaker constitutional council. The president nonetheless maintains a strong influence over the Constitutional Court’s make-up, nonetheless, with the flexibility to pick the courtroom’s chairman and four of the judges; parliament chooses the other three.

Tokayev has emphasized the significance 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 closer to the populations they represent. Maybe the most disappointing facet of proposed reforms is the shortage of significant 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 could have been chosen by the president. The best to elect local leadership has been one of the constant calls for from Almaty residents, and this try and create alternative is finally cosmetic.

The proposed reforms are essential steps toward real representative government in Kazakhstan; however, they do not necessarily constitute forward movement. Most of the amendments are simply reinstating mechanisms of checks on presidential energy that beforehand existed, relatively than materially altering the connection between state and society, as Tokayev claims.