KZBlog

Today, a joint-session of Kazakhstan’s Parliament is meeting to discuss and possibly approve Constitutional Amendments. The President will be present along with the Prime Minister, the akims of the oblasts and major cities, and representatives of the President’s Administration. According to the head of the Constitutional Commission, the proposed amendments will:

• increase the role of political fractions in both forming the government, and writing laws
• increase the role of political parties
• raise the number of members of both the Mazhilis or lower house of Parliament, and the Senate.
• increase the role of civil society organizations.
• introduce an independent court system
• Other reforms will touch upon the procurator’s office and policing bodies that carry out preliminary investigations and inquests.

The Head of the Constitutional Commission did not give details on these reforms, however, the President in his address at the joint-session introduced perhaps the most notable reform, to shorten of the Presidential term from 7 to 5 years. This measure will be applied after 2012, the end of the term of current President, Nursultan Nazarbayev. This reform is to “emphasize the firmness of our democratic aspirations,” the President announced as he gave his speech in the joint-session today. There had been rumors that the reforms would make Nazarbayev president-for-life, or that the amendments would be used as an excuse to claim that Nazarbayev can run for President for another term–he was elected under the 1993 Constitution, which allowed only 2 terms, but in 2005 he was elected for the third time, under the 1995 Constitution. It was claimed that a new Constitution wiped the slate clean so to speak–this was never seriously disputed and we shall see what happens in 2012.

The President also proposed that members of the Mazhilis be elected solely along Party lines, that the number of Mazhilis be increased by 30 (from 77 at the moment–10 of which are elected on Party slates and 67 elected by regional elections) and the number of Senators be increased by 8. The new Senators will be selected with the agreement of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, a group of representatives of the ethnicities in Kazakhstan, under the President of Kazakhstan. (Currently there are 39 Senators, of which 2 are elected from each oblast and from Astana and Almaty, and 7 are appointed by the President).

One interesting note is that Igor Rogov, Head of the Constitutional Commission, in outlining the proposals to be discussed today claimed that increasing the number of members of Parliament was “a prerogative of the President” here, and yet earlier reports indicated that the President was against enlargement, citing the need for a “compact and professional parliament.”

The plan to amend the Constitution is not a new one, mostly recently the President referred to it in his Address to the People of Kazakhstan and