Kazakhstan, Astana, Dec. 28 / Trend A. Maratov /
Extending Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev's powers actually means life-long presidency, Kazakh political analyst, director of "risk assessment", Dosym Satpayev, said.
"Extending the incumbent president's powers actually means that it is a life-long presidency. But the extension of powers sounds more civilized than the lifetime presidency. This was once claimed by the late Turkmen President Niyazov," Satpayev said in an interview with Trend.
Kazakhstan is considering extending President Nazarbayev's powers until 2020. The Kazakh Central Election Commission on Monday voted for the registration of a statement on holding a referendum to extend presidential powers. The Assembly of Kazakh people supported the initiative to hold a referendum.
Earlier, Kazakhstan discussed two projects: a life presidency and assigning the status of "national leader" to Nazarbayev.
He said that these two documents were proposed to create a legal basis for the incumbent president to be in power for a long time.
An earlier referendum extended Nazarbayev's powers in 1995 until 1999.
The 70-year-old Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev is in power for over 20 years. The next presidential elections were to be held in 2012 in which the current and first president planned to nominate his candidacy.
He said that a dilemma occurred after adopting the law, "Leader of the Nation". If the president is the leader of the nation, whether he should participate in elections as the leader of the nation gets a long-term mandate of trust. Consequently, it is not necessary to constantly reaffirm the mandate in the presidential campaign.
"Despite the fact that the president, according to the constitutional amendments of 2007, could run for presidency several times, there was a problem on how to combine the status of the leader of the nation with the participation in the election campaign," Satpayev said.
He observed that the idea of holding a referendum to extend presidential powers until 2020 occurred due to such a dilemma.
"Although it is referred to as an extension of powers, it actually deals with life-long presidency", Satpayev said.
Last week's national meeting established a group to take the initiative in conducting a referendum to extend presidential powers. According to legislation, initiators of the referendum should collect at least 200,000 signatures from citizens, equally representing all regions, Astana and Almaty. This comes to at least 12,500 signatures in each region.
"All we see today is the details. The ultimate goal is for the current president to have a legitimate legal basis in not giving up the leadership position," Satpayev said.