Kazakh President Tokayev lays out constitutional reform plan

NUR-SULTAN, March 16 (Reuters) – Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed constitutional reforms to restrict the powers of his workplace, saying Wednesday the nation wanted to modify from “superpresidential” rule to a presidential republic with a robust parliament.

Tokayev was elected president in 2019 with the backing of his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had resigned after working the oil-rich nation for 3 many years however retained sweeping powers till not too long ago.

Nazarbayev gave up his remaining powers as the top of the safety council and the chief of the ruling occasion throughout and after violent unrest in early January, and his family have since misplaced quite a few influential positions within the authorities and state firms.

Final week, the authorities detained one in every of Nazarbayev’s nephews in reference to an embezzlement probe, and this week a businessman with hyperlinks to Nazarbayev’s household was detained this week, native media reported.

Addressing the Central Asian nation’s parliament, Tokayev proposed rolling again a few of the authorized adjustments that on the time helped Nazarbayev cement his grip on energy. He referred to as, particularly, for altering the parliamentary election system and re-establishing the constitutional courtroom.

Tokayev additionally stated he wished to recreate three provinces that had been merged with different areas within the Nineties, distance the ruling occasion from authorities and cut back the variety of parliament deputies instantly or not directly appointed by the president.

One other proposed reform would make it simpler to register new political events by lowering the variety of folks required to determine one to five,000 from 20,000.

Reporting by Tamara Vaal; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Enhancing by Jacqueline Wong and Alex Richardson

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