All mention of Nazarbayev removed from new draft of Kazakhstan's constitution
NUR-SULTAN. May 6 (Interfax) - Draft amendments to the Kazakh constitution, which were published on Friday and will be put to a referendum on June 5, remove all mention of the country's first President Nursultan Nazarbayev from the new draft of Kazakhstan's constitution.
Specifically, the provision allowing the first president of Kazakhstan to run for the presidency for more than two times in a row has been excluded from Article 42 of the new draft.
Furthermore, its Article 46 no longer contains the point that the status and powers of the first president of Kazakhstan are regulated by the country's constitution and constitutional law.
The mention of Nazarbayev as the founder of independent Kazakhstan, the first president of Kazakhstan and the leader of the nation and the provision that his status shall not be changed have been removed from Article 91.
A total of 35 amendments to the new draft have been proposed. Most of them are aimed at finalizing the transition from the super-presidential form of governance to the presidential system with a strong parliament. The new edition is expected to formalize the president's equidistant status from all political parties and movements and to ban the president's nearest relatives from holding senior positions in the quasi-state sector.
There are also important amendments to the human rights agenda, such as the establishment of the country's Constitutional Court, formalizing the status of the human rights commissioner at the constitutional level and introducing a ban on the death penalty.