Kazakhstan's new constitution, approved by 87.2% of voters with a 73% turnout in a 15 March referendum and signed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev two days later, takes effect on 1 July. It rewrites roughly 80% of the 1995 text. The bicameral parliament, the Senate and the Mazhilis, is replaced by a single 145-seat chamber called the Kurultai, elected on party lists for five-year terms. The office of vice president returns, appointed by the president with the chamber's consent. A new body, the People's Council, or Halyk Kenesi, gains the right to initiate legislation, with its members appointed by the president.
The official framing, set out for foreign audiences in a government report in March, is evolutionary: a renewal of the presidential republic begun in 2019 and accelerated in 2022, meant to speed lawmaking and sharpen accountability. Critics read it differently. Analysts at Chatham House and ConstitutionNet argue the package strengthens the presidency under the language of reform, and opens several succession paths, including a scenario in which Tokayev could claim a fresh seven-year term or move to the vice presidency while installing a successor.
Backed by 87% and billed as modernisation, the overhaul concentrates presidential power as much as it redistributes it.
The first test of the new party-list system is already running. On 12 June the ruling Amanat party voted to merge into the newly created Adilet party, approved by Adilet delegates on 14 June, a reshuffle that will shape how the single chamber is contested. With presidential elections due in 2027 and parliamentary ones in 2028, the machinery being switched on next month is the machinery that will run those votes.
For a region where the multi-vector economic story dominates, the Kazakh constitutional change is the political counterpart, and it cuts against the grain of the reform language. Chatham House notes the new text cements sovereignty in ways Moscow will watch warily, while pointing Kazakhstan toward the state-led models of China and the Gulf rather than Western liberal norms. Astana is consolidating at home as it courts capital abroad. The two moves are not in tension from Astana's point of view; they are the same project.