Kazakhstan's politics: a new constitution, one chamber and a president's appointees

Why Kazakhstan rewrote its constitution twice in four years

Independent Kazakhstan adopted its first constitution on 28 January 1993. It made the prime minister and the cabinet answerable to the president alone, the constitution of 1995 that replaced it reinforced that relationship, and amendments over the next two decades added to the president's position: in 2007 Nursultan Nazarbayev was exempted personally from the two-term limit, and after he resigned in 2019 he kept the chair of the Security Council for life under his status as first president.

The first rewrite came out of the unrest of January 2022. A referendum on 5 June 2022 amended 33 of the constitution's 98 articles. Freedom House records that the changes removed Nazarbayev's constitutional privileges, limited the president to a single seven-year term and cut the membership needed to register a party from 20,000 to 5,000, after a reduction from 40,000 announced in 2019. The law still bars parties based on ethnic origin, religion or gender. The Constitutional Court was restored and the death penalty abolished, and in 2023 the court annulled the "leader of the nation" law that had given Nazarbayev and his family immunity from prosecution for most offences.

The second followed within four years. In an address on 8 September 2025 the president proposed abolishing the Senate and electing a single chamber entirely from party lists, at first for 2027. In January 2026 a Commission on Constitutional Reform was set up under the chair of the Constitutional Court, and a decree in February called a referendum for 15 March. Voters approved a new constitution with 87.15% of the vote, on a turnout the Caspian Policy Center gives as 73%. It was signed on 17 March and came into force on 1 July 2026, with a preamble, 11 sections and 96 articles, and the Caspian Policy Center estimates that 84% of the old text was changed. The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst notes that the whole rewrite took about six months, and the OSCE reports that some of the people its observers met described the process as expedited, with limited public consultation.

What the president can do under the new text

The president is elected directly for a single term of seven years and may not be elected twice. Article 43 makes that limit unamendable. A candidate must be a citizen by birth, at least 40, fluent in the state language and resident for the previous 15 years, with a higher education degree and at least five years in public service or elected office. While in office the president may not belong to a party, sit in a representative body or run a business.

The new text moves several appointments to the president. Under the 1995 constitution the Senate's consent was needed for the heads of the National Bank and the National Security Committee and for the prosecutor general; with the Senate gone, the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst reads these as falling to the president. The president nominates the prime minister, the chair of the Kurultai and the judges of the Supreme Court, and may dissolve the Kurultai if it repeatedly refuses to elect a chair or to consent to appointments. The OSCE adds temporary powers to legislate alone while there is no parliament.

How the vice presidency changes succession

The office of vice president existed in the first years of independence and was abolished in 1995. The 2026 constitution restores it in place of the state counsellor. The president appoints the vice president with the consent of a majority of the Kurultai, sets the scope of the office and may dismiss its holder. The vice president represents the president in dealings with the Kurultai and the government. Under the old text the Senate speaker stood in if the presidency fell vacant, which is how Kassym-Jomart Tokayev became acting president in March 2019; the new text passes the head of state's powers to the vice president instead.

On 7 July 2026 the Constitutional Court ruled, in Regulatory Resolution No 89, that the limits on re-election and reappointment to the presidency, the courts and the prosecutor's office apply only to appointments made under the 2026 constitution. Terms served under the 1995 text do not count.

How a single Kurultai replaced two chambers

Until 2026 the Parliament had two chambers. The Senate had 50 members: 40 chosen by the regional assemblies and the major cities, and 10 appointed by the president. The Mazhilis had 98 members, 70% elected from party lists and 30% in single-member districts since the 2023 election, the first time since 2004 that a mixed system was used.

The Kurultai has 145 deputies, elected for five years by closed-list proportional representation in one nationwide constituency, with a 5% threshold. Only registered parties may nominate, and only from among their members; independent candidacy was abolished. Each list must reach a combined 30% quota of women, people under 35 and people with disabilities. A deputy must be at least 25 and have lived in Kazakhstan for the previous 10 years.

The Kurultai adopts constitutional and ordinary laws, can override a presidential objection, decides on war and peace and can call a national referendum. It consents to the appointment of the vice president, the prime minister, the judges of the Constitutional Court and the members of the Central Election Commission and the Supreme Audit Chamber, elects the Supreme Court judges the president proposes and can pass a vote of no confidence in the government. The Caspian Policy Center reads the overall balance as a narrowing of parliament's powers and a return toward a more presidential system.

Who sits on the People's Council

The constitution creates a People's Council, the Halyk Kenesi, as "the highest consultative body representing the interests of the people of the country". It can propose bills to the Kurultai and initiate national referendums, and its members are appointed by the president. The OSCE and the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst both give it 126 members; the Caspian Policy Center, writing before it was formed, gave 164. The Analyst describes it as a merger of two earlier bodies, the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan and the National Kurultai.

How the first Kurultai was elected

The election on 23 August 2026 had seven party lists with 545 candidates, 172 of them women, and almost 12.6 million registered voters. Adilet, a party registered in June 2026 that Amanat, previously Nur Otan, then merged into, took 71.17% of the vote. The official turnout was 74.08%, against 54.21% in 2023 by the Analyst's figures.

The OSCE's observation mission found the election "technically well prepared" but held "in an environment lacking political pluralism", with all contesting parties supporting the incumbent president's policies. Its observers reported "significant differences between voter activity observed and the official turnout data" and serious procedural violations in the count. The mission also noted that the legal framework was revised close to the election with little consultation and that most of its earlier recommendations remained unaddressed.

How outside monitors describe Kazakh politics

Freedom House, in its 2025 report, scored Kazakhstan 5 of 40 for political rights and 18 of 60 for civil liberties, and called its parliamentary and presidential elections "neither free nor fair". It records that the opposition party Alga Kazakhstan was refused registration for the 24th time since 2022 in April 2024, that its leader was sentenced to seven years in November 2023 for financing an extremist organisation, and that the October 2024 referendum on building a nuclear power plant passed with 73% amid reports of ballot stuffing. The V-Dem project described Kazakhstan as an electoral autocracy in 2024.

Presidential elections show the same pattern over time. Nazarbayev was re-elected in April 2011 with more than 95% of the vote and in April 2015 with nearly 98%, and OSCE observers said of the 2011 vote that voters had been left without a meaningful choice. The snap presidential election of November 2022 was won with 81.3% by the election commission's count, against five other candidates, and the OSCE found it neither free nor fair, according to Freedom House.

Freedom House also describes corruption as widespread at every level and prosecutions of senior figures as rare until a person has fallen from favour. After January 2022 a series of cases was brought against associates of the former president: in February 2024 a former minister of culture and sports was sentenced to 11 years for embezzling 1.5 billion tenge between 2017 and 2019. A new law on the mass media signed in June 2024 drew criticism for a clause that could let the Foreign Ministry refuse accreditation to foreign journalists.

The government's own account is different. The presidential office describes the republic as "a unitary state with the presidential system of government" and, under the constitution, "a democratic, secular, legal and social state". A 2026 poll by the Kazakhstan Institute of Public Development found that the issues people named most were low incomes, inflation, corruption and unemployment.

Women were 18.4% of the Mazhilis after the 2023 election. In 2026 the OSCE counted women in 3 of 25 government posts and in none of the 20 posts of regional governor.

How regions and courts are run

Kazakhstan is a unitary state of 17 regions and three cities of national significance, Astana, Almaty and Shymkent. Each region is run by an akim, a governor appointed by the president, and district akims are appointed by the regional ones. The local assemblies, the maslikhats, elected the members of the territorial and precinct election commissions for the 2026 vote.

The 2026 constitution keeps a Constitutional Court of a chair and 10 judges, each serving a single eight-year term. The president appoints the chair and, with the Kurultai's consent, the judges. Citizens can apply to it over legal acts that affect their constitutional rights, and an ordinary court that finds a law in breach of those rights must suspend the case and refer it. The text no longer states that international treaties take precedence over national law, and it defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Which blocs Kazakhstan has joined

Since 1991 Kazakhstan has described its foreign policy as "multi-vector", seeking good relations with Russia and China, the United States and Europe at the same time. It joined the United Nations on 2 March 1992 and sat on the Security Council for 2017 and 2018. It chaired the OSCE in 2010. It belongs to the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Organization of Turkic States.

Some ties are specific to the country's Soviet inheritance. Russia leases about 6,000 square kilometres around the Baikonur Cosmodrome until 2050. Kazakhstan gave up the Soviet nuclear warheads on its soil under the Budapest Memorandum of December 1994 and signed the UN treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons in 2018. CSTO forces were deployed in Kazakhstan during the unrest of January 2022. In November 2025, after establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, the Foreign Ministry announced that Kazakhstan had joined the Abraham Accords. Kazakhstan: history covers how the state was built, and Kazakhstan: economy what it lives on.