>> The autocrat’s textbook says that every so often you need to call up a referendum to make changes, big or minor, to the constitution, and also to show off just how popular you are. They all have their peculiarities and differences, but leaders from Central Asia and the South Caucasus have all played the referendum card.
In May, 92% of Tajikistan’s voting population turned up to extend presidential powers.
This week, a referendum in Azerbaijan proposed 29 small-scale amendments to the Constitution, which were overwhelmingly adopted, of course.
In the coming months, Kyrgyzstan is likely to have a referendum to grant more powers to the PM.
In previous years, countries across the region have held several referendums. Essentially the aim has been to change the Constitution to allow the incumbent to remain in power by scraping limits on terms, age caps, the length of each term.
>> OK, but are these changes meaningful? Do they have a real impact on politics?
>>These kinds of referendums can be meaningful. From a legal point of view, they change the law. They scrap age requirements to become president — as was the case in Tajikistan and Azerbaijan — and transfer powers from the president to the PM — like Kyrgyzstan’s referendum proposes.
In practice, however, their main aim is for the presidents to retain power or to transfer it to their offspring. There have been notable, and honourable exceptions, of course but not many.
Tajikistan’s referendum this year scrapped limits on presidential terms and lowered the age that a person can run for president to 30 from 35, potentially allowing President Rakhmon’s son, Rustam Emomali, to run for office in 2020.
Azerbaijan had already scrapped limits on presidential term in a referendum in 2009. This time round it lowered the age requirement to 18 from 35 and gave the president the right to dissolve Parliament. President Aliyev’s son Heydar is 19 now. This may be a coincidence, of course.
>> And what about Kyrgyzstan?
>> Kyrgyzstan is a little different. President Almazbek Atambayev will have to leave office next year after his term expires. Some have speculated that, in an effort to avoid losing power he is trying to strengthen the office of PM where he would like to return once he steps down next year.
Certainly his reasons for supporting changes to the constitution are not entirely clear.
The key difference, once again, with other countries in Central Asia, is that Kyrgyzstan’s democracy has advanced further.
>> So, essentially, most of the more seriously autocratic leaders in the region, that’s Azerbaijan and Central Asia with the exception of Kyrgyzstan, have all used referendums to improve their chances of holding on to power? By contrast Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have held referendums in the last few years to boost the power of Parliament over the presidency? Is that right?
>>More of less, although it is important to understand that the drivers of referendums in Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan can also lie in self-interest with incumbent presidents hoping to hold on to power by becoming PM.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
