ALMATY –“I feel a folks can’t be lengthy free, nor ever completely happy,” wrote John Adams, a founding father and the second president of the US, “whose authorities is in a single Meeting.”
When he introduced the creation of an higher chamber for Turkmenistan’s legislature in 2020, then-President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov name-checked the “completely happy life” of his residents, regardless that that was unlikely to be his high precedence.
Fairly it was to present himself a brand new place chairing the brand new physique, referred to as the Halk Maslahaty, or Folks’s Council, as he ready handy over the presidential reins to his son, Serdar Berdymukhammedov.
Greater than two years later and the bicameral experiment in Turkmenistan, one of many world’s most authoritarian nations, is over: The rubber-stamp parliament will as soon as once more be a single-chamber affair, whereas the Folks’s Council is about to mutate into the “highest energy” in authorities, based on state media, who quoted the elder Berdymukhammedov’s proposal on the matter on January 15.
Taking part in quick and free with nationwide legislatures and constitutions has turn out to be the rule, not the exception, in Central Asia, the place a brand new era of energy holders at the moment are searching for methods to carry onto energy, generally borrowing from their predecessors’ playbook.
Turkmen state media reported that Serdar Berdymukhammedov subsequently signed an order setting a January 21 date for a authorities session on the restructure that will confusingly make him — and the ministers of his cupboard — members of the Folks’s Council managed by his father.
Whether or not the youthful Berdymukhammedov will preserve his more and more nominal standing because the nation’s head of state when the overhaul is completed stays to be seen.
Turkmen political observer and analyst Kumush Bairieva advised RFE/RL that the proposal displays “the distorted ego of Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, for whom being the chairman of the parliament’s higher chamber is just not sufficient.”
“Now he needs to show himself into the chief of the nation who strictly controls all different branches of energy, making them report back to the Folks’s Council,” Bairieva mentioned.
The 5- To Seven-Yr Shuffle
If Turkmenistan’s neighbor Uzbekistan passes constitutional modifications as anticipated this spring, then 4 of the area’s 5 international locations — Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — will boast seven-year presidential time period limits.
Tashkent and Astana have all through independence oscillated between phrases of 5 and 7 years, seemingly reflecting the needs of founding presidents Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan and Nursultan Nazarbaev in Kazakhstan, who by no means confronted being voted out of energy.
When Uzbekistan determined to revert again to five-year phrases in 2011, the nation’s senate mentioned the change mirrored hard-liner Karimov’s imaginative and prescient for “the deepening of democratic reforms and the formation of civil society, in addition to the observe that has developed within the overwhelming majority of the democratic states of the world.”
So, how are officers surrounding Karimov’s successor, Shavkat Mirziyoev, justifying the brand new draft structure’s return to the seven-year time period most popular by nondemocratic states?
By pinning it on the folks, after all.
In his end-of-year tackle, Mirziyoev mentioned that “all proposals and needs expressed by our residents will likely be taken into consideration” within the new draft structure put to a referendum subsequent yr.
However earlier this summer time, correspondents for RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service spoke to staff at a manufacturing unit in a provincial city near Tashkent who mentioned their administration had pressured them to signal a letter addressed to lawmakers who have been engaged on the constitutional draft.
The letter, seen by RFE/RL, acknowledged that the undersigned staff have been “very proud of reforms being carried out” in Uzbekistan and requested for presidential phrases to be prolonged from 5 to seven years “or let the pinnacle of state stay for all times.”
Uzbekistan’s constitutional fee mentioned that it obtained 117,357 proposals for modifications to the essential legislation earlier than the deadline for submissions handed on August 1, 2022.
A senior lawmaker has already mentioned that overhauling the structure will enable Mirziyoev to reset his time period rely and run for a 3rd consecutive time period — a trick favored by the late Karimov.
Kyrgyzstan’s 2010 constitutional reform was distinctive for Central Asia for the only real purpose that it was handed at a time when the nation didn’t have a everlasting president.
Because of this, and since the earlier two heads of state have been seen as having abused the workplace whereas enriching their households, the presidency noticed its mandate weakened as parliament and the prime minister gained new powers.
The brand new legislature disillusioned lots of people, nonetheless.
Filled with businessmen with the cash to fund electoral campaigns and thus purchase their seat on the desk, critics argued that it principally protected elite pursuits.
Steadily, new Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev discovered methods to bend the parliament to his will, notably owing to his management over the dreaded safety companies.
Nonetheless, Atambaev nonetheless confronted some constraints, together with a ban on reelection that he noticed, leaving workplace when his time period completed in 2017.
The blended system wouldn’t survive the arrival in energy of Sadyr Japarov, a member of the federal government ousted in 2010, who was serving jail time on kidnapping prices in 2020 when a contemporary bout of political unrest broke out.
Propelled from jail to the presidency by his supporters, Japarov argued that it was important to vary the structure with a view to root out corruption and create a system whereby the pinnacle of state took final accountability for the operating of the federal government.
The end result was a fundamental legislation handed by referendum in 2021 and dubbed a “khanstitution” by its critics as parliament shed its rights to substantiate and sack governments.
The brand new structure additionally reintroduced the incumbent’s proper to run for a second time period.
Distinctive Privileges For Distinctive Folks?
The federal government overhaul pursued by Berdymukhammedov in Turkmenistan could properly result in new personalised constitutional exceptions of the sort loved by Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, one other Central Asian strongman who’s reportedly mulling a hereditary succession.
Due to modifications handed to Tajikistan’s structure in 2016, Rahmon is not a mere president but in addition the “founding father of peace and nationwide unity, chief of the nation.”
That title brings with it not simply lifetime immunity from prosecution for Rahmon and his family members however a lifetime proper for Rahmon to make and veto authorities selections, even when he’s not holding any formal workplace on the time.
Rahmon’s son, Rustam Emomali, 35, is anticipated to take over as president within the close to future.
However are these constitutional exceptions price a lot on their very own? Maybe not, if the person sitting within the sizzling seat can’t be managed.
Previous to unprecedented violent unrest in Kazakhstan in January 2022, octogenarian Nazarbaev was additionally “chief of the nation,” or Elbasy in Kazakh. Anti-government demonstrations, which have been initially sparked by a protest over gas costs, unfold throughout Kazakhstan, leaving over 200 folks lifeless.
Nazarbaev’s standing as “chief of the nation” and the presence of his allies throughout authorities solid a shadow over the person that he handpicked to succeed him as president after stepping down from the place in 2019, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.
Within the aftermath of the January bloodshed, although, Nazarbaev and his family members have been shunted to the sidelines as Toqaev emerged from an influence battle as paramount chief.
A referendum on constitutional modifications in June that Toqaev promoted eliminated all references to Elbasy from the structure, whereas the legislation that ruled the titleholder’s authorized and policymaking privileges was pronounced void by parliament earlier this month.
That’s significantly dangerous information for Nazarbaev’s instant household, who loved particular protections beneath the legislation.
Nazarbaev himself remains to be immune from prosecution for all crimes besides treason for the interval lined by his three-decade reign, due to a separate legislation that governs the rights of former presidents.
And in a single place, he’s nonetheless Elbasy: on his web site, Elbasy.kz.
