The 'variable' Constitutions of Central Asia
Kazakhstan wants to move to a more balanced system between the presidency and parliament. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are going in the opposite direction. In Uzbekistan, President Mirziyoyev wants to overcome the limit of two five-year terms.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - Kazakhstan has announced a referendum on June 5 on changes to the country's Constitution, a decree signed on May 5 by President Kasym-Žomart Tokaev. Changes in the constitutional charter are quite frequent phenomena in the countries of Central Asia, often linked to changes in presidential figures, although they are usually presented as "needs of society".
Tokaev motivated the convocation in reference to the transformations taking place in Kazakhstan after the tensions and clashes in January. The goal is to realize the transition from the "super-presidential" form to a normal relationship of balance between the powers of the president and those of the parliament, whose role must be greatly strengthened.
The discussion so far has focused on the constitutional definitions of the role of the first president Nursultan Nazarbaev, who is currently remembered in Article 91 as the "founder of independent Kazakhstan". The committee in charge of proposing the amendments initially thought not to delete Nazarbaev's "historical role", keeping the existing diction, but it was then decided to remove it from the basic charter, as "its importance is well known and does not need formal definitions."
As many as 56 amendments to 33 articles will be proposed, resulting in the rewriting of some 20 state laws. It is proposed to restore the Constitutional Court, which had been abolished in 1995, to prohibit the president from belonging to a political party and his relatives from holding relevant positions in the public administration or in activities related to those of the state. Parliament will be transformed in its composition, the order of its activities, and a new electoral law will also be introduced. Among the most symbolic changes will be the abolition of the death penalty and those on land ownership.
The first Constitution of independent Kazakhstan, approved in 1993, was widely considered to be one of the most democratic in the entire former Soviet area. Already in 1995, many restrictions had been introduced, with the only referendum to date in this field. Subsequently, changes were made five more times, in 1998, 2007, 2011, 2017 and the last time in 2019, when Tokaev renamed the capital from Astana to Nur-Sultan in honor of Nazarbaev.
Even in neighboring countries there is a custom of changing the basic charter. In Kyrgyzstan, a referendum was held last year, in the opposite direction to the one planned in Kazakhstan: the parliamentary republic became presidential. In 2016, a referendum was held in Tajikistan, which lowered the minimum age of presidential candidates to 30 and allowed the current head of state, Emomali Rakhmon, to run for office without term limits. His son Rustam is now 35 years old, and there are plans for a family and generational change.
Changes have also been made in Uzbekistan since Šavkat Mirziyoyev came to power in 2017, in the sense of modernizing the judiciary, and again in 2019 for a "democratization of the government and its responsibilities." After the second election in 2021, Mirziyoyev said the country needs "constitutional reform" to overcome the two-five-year term limit.
Turkmenistan will celebrate "Constitution Day" on May 18, following the 2020 amendments defining the role of the former president, and the 2021 amendments on the splitting of the parliament's chambers; after the Berdymuhamedovs took over, their father Gurbanguly became president of the Senate, the Khalk Maslakhat.
In the post-Soviet period, in general, the Central Asian national parliaments were considered undemocratic and rather insignificant, in imitation of the Soviet-era constitutional and parliamentary system. The Kazakh referendum could signal a new course, which would affect the entire region.
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04/07/2018 10:10
16/01/2023 09:48
