A constitutional referendum, locally called the republican referendum (Kazakh: Республикалық референдум, romanized: Respublikalyq referendum; Russian: Республиканский референдум, romanized: Respublikanskiy referendum), was held in Kazakhstan on 5 June 2022. It was the third referendum since Kazakhstan's independence in 1991, and the first since the 1995 referendum that established the second constitution. The amendments followed violent civil unrest in early January caused by worsening economic conditions and subsequent calls for rapid political reform. The referendum changed 33 of the document's 98 articles. Political commentators assessed that amendments would lessen the influence of the executive branch, grant more powers to the Parliament, and eliminate the powers that former president Nursultan Nazarbayev had retained after resigning from office in 2019.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev unveiled the proposed amendments during his early State of the Nation Address in March 2022. After Tokayev's announcements, he subsequently formed a working group in forming proposals for the constitutional changes along with the Parliament and in April 2022, the proposed amendments to the constitution were submitted to the Constitutional Council for approval. During the drafting of the amendments, several controversial changes were proposed by deputies and Kazakh officials regarding the exclusion of Russian from being a co-official language along with Kazakh; most notably, an early proposal to grant former president Nazarbayev the new honorary title as the "founder of independent Kazakhstan", along with other privileges, faced a public backlash and was eventually scrapped. On 29 April, President Tokayev raised the idea of holding a Republican Referendum to approve the changes and additions made to the constitution. In early May, with the approval by the Constitutional Council, the Parliament adopted a draft package of constitutional amendments and additions. As the Parliament ratified a final revision on 5 May, Tokayev approved the draft and set the referendum date in a presidential decree.
Throughout the campaign, the amendments as well as the holding of a referendum were endorsed by various pro-government political parties, state institutions, NGOs, public figures, and statesmen, including former president Nazarbayev himself. Although the referendum lacked a unified "No" campaign, civil activists and opposition groups criticized it for the financial cost of the referendum, short timeframe for campaigning, and a lack of dialogue between the Kazakh government and citizens during drafting. Critics argued that the amendments would change little in Kazakh politics and instead simply bolster President Tokayev's potential second term ambitions.
To be approved, the proposed amendments had to garner the absolute majority of all votes, including blank and invalid ones, on the national level as well as in two-thirds of the 17 regions and autonomous cities, and a minimum turnout of 50% of registered voters. The Central Election Commission (OSK) in the evening of 5 June reported a preliminary turnout of 68.4% shortly after polls had closed. Exit polls, published in the mass media at midnight on 6 June during the coverage of the referendum, indicated that more than 74% of Kazakh voters supported the constitutional changes. In the following morning, the OSK announced that voters approved 56 amendments to the Constitution of Kazakhstan, with the overall final results published on 7 June showing 77.2% of the voters in favour and 18.7% opposed.
Background
The 1995 Constitution of Kazakhstan has been in flux since Nursultan Nazarbayev's presidency in the early 1990s. During his first term in office, Nazarbayev dissolved the Supreme Council of Kazakhstan and oversaw the August 1995 constitutional referendum which greatly expanded his executive powers. The political opposition boycotted the August 1995 referendum; local observers claimed that the final results, which saw 90% of voters approve the changes, had been falsified. As a result of the referendum, Nazarbayev gained the right to dissolve the parliament; because the Constitutional Court of Kazakhstan became a purely advisory body, Nazarbayev could amend the constitution virtually at will and rule in an authoritarian manner.
Amidst the colour revolutions that took place in former Soviet republics, several opposition parties in late 2004 established the Coordinating Council of Democratic Forces of Kazakhstan, led by former Mazhilis chairman Zharmakhan Tuyakbay. The Coordinating Council aimed at implementing political reforms and drafted its own proposed Kazakh constitution prior to the 2005 presidential elections. However, police confiscated the leaflets to promote the project in August 2005 prior to distribution. Nevertheless, Tuyakbay, the leading opposition figure in the presidential race against Nazarbayev, campaigned for a new constitution with a one-presidential-term limit and a ban on the incumbent president's relatives from holding political offices. Nazarbayev would comfortably win the 2005 election, and any hope of reform died when Tuyakbay refused to recognise the official results and unsuccessfully sought to overturn the election.
Following the Zhanaozen massacre and 2012 legislative elections, Tuyakbay, who headed the opposition Nationwide Social Democratic Party at that time, suggested a nationwide Kurultai (political council) in autumn of 2012 to discuss political reforms and constitutional amendments on "organisational, technical, ideological issues"; this proposal did not come to fruition.
In 2017, President Nazarbayev proposed constitutional reforms that for the first time transferred powers away from the executive, granting them instead to parliament. Observers noted that the changes did not meaningfully enhance political pluralism, but could ensure a smooth political succession whenever Nazarbayev stepped down. However, by the late 2010s, political activism in Kazakh civil society and on social media had grown substantially.
After President Nazarbayev's resignation in March 2019, public pressure grew for the new President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to implement liberal reforms. Former Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR chairman Serikbolsyn Abdildin, supported a return to the 1993 Kazakh constitution he had authored. During the 2019 presidential elections, both candidates Amirjan Qosanov and Sadibek Tügel called for constitutional changes in their campaigns: Qosanov advocated shifting to a president-parliamentary system while Tügel proposed drafting an entirely new Kazakh constitution to promote the "democratic values that have always existed in the steppe." In August 2019 during Constitution Day, activists of the "Oyan, Qazaqstan!" movement held a march in Almaty demanding reforms toward a parliamentary system. The Ak Zhol Democratic Party in its electoral programme for the 2021 legislative elections called for a "phased transition from the presidential to a parliamentary system" as well. But political analysts believed that the President Tokayev had little interest in reforming the constitution. His predecessor Nazarbayev still possessed various influential state posts, most notably the Supreme Council chairmanship, and Tokayev seemed to have minimal de facto autonomy.
January 2022 unrest
As protests broke out in the city of Zhanaozen initially over a sharp increase in liquefied petroleum gas prices in early January, massive discontent quickly spread throughout Kazakhstan. Demonstrators insisted that the government had repeatedly ignored the declining standard of living of Kazakh citizens. They demanded economic, social, and–more importantly–political reforms, ranging from a full parliamentary system with an executive prime minister to simply a return to the previous 1993 constitution that retained stronger checks and balances.
President Tokayev initially did little to appease the demonstrations, encouraging the public not to disturb public order and instructing the government to examine the growing situation in Zhanaozen. However, the protests eventually erupted into unrest in Almaty, with violent confrontations between demonstrators and the police. Tokayev had pleaded for calm during a televised address where he announced that all legitimate demands by the protesters would be considered and urged the public not to succumb to provocations.
With the protests seemingly continuing unabated, Tokayev enacted a nationwide state of emergency and sacked the government led by Prime Minister Asqar Mamin. Tokayev also dismissed former president Nazarbayev from his leading role as the Security Council chairman, centralizing power in his person. Tokayev then suppressed the riots with government and allied Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) troops, leaving official estimates of hundreds dead and over $2 billion worth of damages.
In the aftermath, President Tokayev addressed the lower house of the legislature, the Mazhilis, on 11 January 2022. He announced a new package of political reforms that would be prepared "on the basis of a broad and constructive dialogue with civil society and experts," and be presented in the upcoming annual State of the Nation Address originally intended for September 2022. Tokayev later during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in February 2022 reiterated that he would not seek "revenge or polarisation" for the unrest and that his administration would implement "large-scale political and economic reforms".
Despite Tokayev's conciliatory remarks, the Human Rights Watch continued to report numerous cases of prison torture, ill-treatment and custody deaths towards both Kazakh protestors and bystanders.
Legislative drafting of the amendments
Kazakh society widely discussed possible reforms that President Tokayev could propose. Prominent political scientists, politicians and public figures suggested changes to the structure of the parliament, the electoral system, and the role of opposition parties. On 29 January 2022, in an interview with Khabar Agency, President Tokayev revealed that he was "seriously thinking" about reforming "parliamentary and party system" in Kazakhstan and hoped to serve as a "magnet that brings different social and political forces to a common mark on their position".
In early February 2022, it was reported that President Tokayev would unveil a package of political reforms in an earlier scheduled State of the Nation Address around mid-March. Indeed, Tokayev's 16 March speech to Parliament described a series of constitutional amendments to democratize Kazakhstan where he proposed:
- Revising the powers of the president with a transition from a super-presidential system to a presidential republic with a strong Parliament;
- Prohibit the president from holding membership in any political party while holding office, and to prohibit akims and their deputies from holding positions in the party's branches;
- Prohibit judges, representatives of the Central Election Commission, the state auditing committee, military personnel, and employees of national security and law enforcement agencies from holding membership in any political party or endorsing any political party;
- Prohibit the president from overriding the orders of akims of oblasts, major cities, or the capital;
- A ban on the incumbent president's nearest relatives on holding top-level state positions;
- Reducing the number of seats appointed by the president in the Senate of Kazakhstan from 15 to 10 members, and increasing the number of seats in the chamber from 49 to 54, with the extra five seats being decided by the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan, as their guaranteed nine-seat presence in the lower house Mazhilis would be abolished;
- Reducing the number of members in the Mazhilis from 107 to 98;
- Reducing the powers of the Senate in drafting laws;
- Transition from full proportional representation to a mixed-member majoritarian representation electoral system, with 70% of Mazhilis MPs elected proportionally from party-lists and the remaining 30% from single-member electoral districts;
- Direct elections of akims of major cities and the capital (although candidates will be chosen by the president);
- Presidential appointments of akims of oblasts will be subject to a vote of the regional assembly;
- Creation of three new oblasts (ultimately performed by presidential decree outside the referendum process); and
- Reestablishment of the Constitutional Court.
Tokayev's proposals were met with mixed reactions in public society and on social media. Some welcomed lesser presidential dominance in politics while others reiterated that newly announced reforms are simply "cosmetic" and would bring no rapid changes to Kazakhstan's political system, noting that Tokayev would still retain many of the existing executive powers. U.S. diplomat Uzra Zeya, serving as an Under-Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, during a meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi in an April 2022 visit to Nur-Sultan, welcomed the proposed changes and expressed the United States' interest in assisting Kazakhstan on the full implementation of Tokayev's reforms.
On 22 April 2022, President Tokayev at a cabinet meeting announced that he had submitted the prepared amendments made by the working group to the Constitutional Council for a review, touting that well-known legal scholars, the Commissioner for Human Rights, representatives of parliament and state bodies took part in the drafting of the newly constitutional amendments. From there, Tokayev called on legislators to promptly consider the laws at a joint meeting of the Parliament and expressed his support for all changes proposed by the working group.
Preparations
Following the State of the Nation Address in March 2022, President Tokayev ordered the creation of a working group led by his own administration deputy head Erjan Jienbaev on 28 March, which would oversee the development of proposals for amendments and additions to the 1995 Constitution of Kazakhstan, with the group being instructed to form proposals within a month. Justice Minister Qanat Musin presented the National Plan, which included proposed changes to the constitution that were brought up by Tokayev in an address with development of a draft being set for completion in April 2022.
On 23 February 2022, Senate chairman Mäulen Äşimbaev, in an interview with YouTube channel НеКурултай, commented on the work towards new reforms, and announced that the School of Analytics and Club of Young Experts–a platform formed under the Senate which assists in drafting bills–was working to bring about a New Kazakhstan. Äşimbaev asserted that the Senate will do "everything necessary" to support Tokayev's policies, including enact reforms. In response to Tokayev's State of the Nation Address, Äşimbaev called the main goals of constitutional reforms to "increase the involvement of citizens in decision-making processes at all levels and to improve the well-being of Kazakhstanis", pledging for the Senate to adopt laws after lawmakers hold discussions with experts and public figures, as well opinions made by citizens.
Chairman of the lower house Mazhilis, Erlan Qoşanov, called on all MPs to join the work on implementing constitutional changes, noting the importance of individual legislators' initiative in drafting amendments. He also suggested for the Mazhilis become a platform for dialogue with the public and government agencies, beyond just the State of the Nation address.