Constitutional Reform “Amounts to Nothing”
Monday, 26 February, 2007
Constitutional Reform “Amounts to Nothing”
Monday, 26 February, 2007
A working group on constitutional amendments, headed by Nazarbaev, was formed on February 20 to develop changes that will expand parliament’s powers.
The president thinks that the parliamentary majority should have a say in the formation of government and wants to hand over the powers of the constitutional council, central electoral committee and accounts committee to parliamentarians.
At the same time, though, Nazarbaev has emphasised that he is in favour of keeping strong presidential powers.
NBCentralAsia analysts point out that his move to grant parliament more power amounts to nothing given that the presidential party Nur Otan dominates the assembly.
During the last parliamentary elections held in 2004, the Otan party won 60 per cent of seats in the lower house. Otan's membership was greatly boosted when it merged with other pro-government parties last summer and autumn, renaming itself Nur Otan in the process.
The 67 members of the lower house are elected by a first-past-the post-system with just ten appointed from party lists. In the upper house, two representatives are elected from 16 regions and seven appointed by the president.
Political scientist Andrey Chebotarev suggests that broadening the powers of parliament would be more effective if there was a viable opposition in Kazak politics.
“Nazarbaev has made it clear that he doesn’t support increasing the number of parliamentarians elected from party lists,” said Chebotarev. “Even if these amendments are passed, it is obvious that nothing will change - parliament won’t be superior to the executive power.”
Political scientist Oleg Sidorov believes Nazarbaev’s initiative is nothing more than a promotion stunt for Kazakstan’s application to chair the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE.
“When the question of Kazakstan’s 2009 OSCE chairmanship is raised, reforms seem to be necessary and vital,” said Sidorov. “Granting more powers to the parliament will have no impact given that [parliament is a single party entity].”
The OSCE will make its decision at the end of this year.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
