On March 15, Kazakhstan passed a new constitution, with preliminary results showing more than 87% of voters cast in favor of the new basic law.
A previous constitutional referendum held in 2022 marked the end of a devastatingly mismanaged transition between the Central Asian country’s first and second independence-era leaders.
Now, the signs point to a new choreographed handover of power.
But after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev abruptly reversed course on when the plebiscite would be held, can his earlier pledges not to seek office after his term ends in 2029 still be taken at face value?
From Tweak To Overhaul
When Tokayev first broached the topic of further constitutional changes during his annual address last September, the scope was narrow: a restructuring of the legislature from bicameral to a single chamber. He proposed holding the plebiscite in 2027 and stressed that there should be no “hurry” over discussions or drafting.
Four months later, the picture changed entirely. Speaking in the city of Qyzylorda on January 20, Tokayev said the proposal had generated “a huge response” from citizens, who had been able to submit suggestions through a public petitions website. A far greater overhaul was now required, he added.
“In fact, we intend to take a step comparable to the adoption of a [completely] new Constitution,” he told his audience, unveiling a sweeping set of changes to the architecture of government and elections.
What followed was a constitutional sprint. A first draft appeared on January 31 — just ten days after a constitutional commission was formally appointed to supersede the earlier working group. On February 11, Tokayev announced the date for the plebiscite. The finalized text was published the next day.
Since more than 80 percent of the existing basic law’s text has been altered, the basic law has been treated as a replacement of the 1995 constitution, as opposed to the mere amendments passed in 2022. Speaking on the night of the vote, Tokayev declared March 15 Constitution Day, and said that the new constitution could be considered “among the most progressive” in the world.
The referendum's structural conditions — limited space for public debate or a ‘no’ campaign, a compressed drafting timeline, and an administrative push in favor — meant the outcome was largely predictable.
What remains less clear, however, are the underlying objectives. Beyond the changes on the ballot, significant questions remain about what the overhaul is designed to achieve, why its scope expanded so dramatically, and why the timeline accelerated so sharply.
The Shadow of the Super-President
One reason for the haste — beyond a more general desire to pre-empt opposition — may be Tokayev’s concerns regarding his still-active 85-year-old predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Nazarbayev governed Kazakhstan for three decades before only partially ceding power to his hand-picked protégé in 2019. As Tokayev attempted to consolidate power, the rivalry between their respective camps laid the groundwork for the worst unrest in the country’s post-independence history in January 2022. The events of Qandy Qantar (‘Bloody January’ began with peaceful anti-government protests in the West of the country following an overnight spike in the cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). But by the time Tokayev announced that he had given state troops a “shoot to kill” order, the unrest had become far more violent.
Two nephews of the former president, Samat Abish and Kairat Satybaldy, were widely rumored to have played a driving and destabilizing role during the violence that left at least 238 people dead, many civilians. Abish, a former deputy of the security services, received an eight-year suspended sentence in a trial believed to be directly connected to the events. But he spent no time in incarceration, and the details of the trial were hidden from the public. His brother, Satybaldy, spent over two years in jail after being convicted of extortion, becoming the first and only close blood relative of the former president to be placed behind bars. Released into a probationary sentence in 2024, investigators had initially stated that Satybaldy was being additionally probed for crimes “undermining the security of the state.” There was no indication that he was ever charged with such crimes. According to the Anti-Corruption Agency of Kazakhstan, he was forced to return $1.5 billion to the state.
Ultimately, ‘Bloody January’ was a turning point for Tokayev’s presidency. His decision to invite a Russia-led peacekeeping contingent to help restore order appeared to shift a divided political elite decisively towards him — and away from his former patron.
Yet despite resigning all formal political positions and styling himself as “just a pensioner” after the unrest — and despite vocally backing Tokayev and the new constitution when casting his ballot in Astana on March 15 — Nazarbayev’s capacity to disrupt should not be underestimated.
The octogenarian is, after all, still the patriarch of Kazakhstan's wealthiest family network. His three daughters by his official wife Sara Nazarbayeva — Dariga, Dinara, and Aliya — have not faced prosecution at all. Dariga, a former high-ranking politician, who was once seen as a possible successor to Nazarbayev, appeared in public in Kazakhstan in 2023 along with the ex-president at the funeral of Nazarbayev’s younger brother, Bolat. The event was attended by dozens of former top officials, in what one commentator called a “who’s who of Old Kazakhstan.” Middle daughter Dinara Kulibayeva and her husband Timur Kulibayev are still majority stakeholders in the country’s largest bank, Halyk. Nazarbayev’s youngest daughter, Aliya Nazarbayeva, was spared investigation even though a monopolist recycling company founded in her name was at the center of a grand corruption trial that saw its official leadership receive sentences of between two and seven years imprisonment, also in 2023.
The future well-being of Nazarbayev’s clan may have been on the agenda when he met at least twice with Russia’s Vladimir Putin last year. But it would be surprising if Kazakhstan’s political trajectory under Tokayev was not also discussed, particularly given that Moscow has made its displeasure with Astana’s neutral position on the Ukraine war loudly known through proxies. Russia Today Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan famously called Kazakhstan “ungrateful” for Russia’s intervention after Kazakh officials ruled out recognition of Russian-backed separatist territories in eastern Ukraine on the eve of the war. Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin went further a few months later, threatening“measures as [used] in Ukraine.”
What the New Constitution Actually Does
At an expanded government session last month, Tokayev described the new constitution, which enters force on July 1, as continuing the shift away from the "super-presidential system" established under his predecessor. As he described it, the country is "moving towards a presidential republic with an authoritative, influential parliament."
The constitutional text, however, presents a more complex picture.
The unrepeatable seven-year presidential term introduced in the 2022 constitutional amendments — a significant development in a region defined by “rulers for life” — is retained. But while the 2022 referendum curtailed certain powers and privileges, including those attached to Nazarbayev personally, the new constitution consolidates presidential authority over key institutional appointments.
Under the previous basic law, the legislature’s upper house had to agree the president’s appointments and dismissals of top prosecutors, national security chiefs, the chair of the Supreme Court, and the head of the central bank. Under the new constitution, such political appointments become the exclusive prerogative of the president.
The restructured, unicameral parliament — to be renamed the Kurultai — will seat 145 members elected by party lists.
The Kurultai will, however, have to share the political stage with an entirely new institution: the Peoples' Council or Halyk Kenesi. This body — composed of 16 members appointed by the president — will be empowered to introduce legislation into the Kurultai and even to propose referendums. Designated in the constitutional draft as a “supreme consultative organ,” the Halyk Kenesi appears positioned to carry considerably more institutional weight than the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, a consultative body dissolved in the reform.
The new constitution also expands the grounds on which the president may dissolve the legislature and call fresh elections — including deadlocks over appointments that still require parliamentary consent, such as those of the prime minister and the newly created vice-president. Should the Kurultai be dissolved, the president would be entitled to govern by decree for up to two months.
Taken together, these provisions suggest that the trajectory of constitutional reform in Kazakhstan is not straightforwardly away from executive primacy, but rather toward a reconfigured form of it — one that raises questions about the incentive structures facing future incumbents as their unrepeatable terms approach their end.
The Succession Question
The reintroduction of the vice-presidency — an office dormant since 1996 — will attract the closest scrutiny from those who study elite politics in Astana. If Tokayev were to resign as Nazarbayev did in 2019, the vice-president would assume power, following a model familiar from the United States and elsewhere.
The question, then, is whether Tokayev is actually preparing to leave.
On balance, a voluntary departure still appears more likely than not. But the space for uncertainty has grown. The strongest argument that Tokayev might seek a new seven-year term — despite the constitution reaffirming that presidents cannot be re-elected — rests on the concept of obnuleniye — the Russian term for the formula through which leaders like Putin and Nazarbayev have used new constitutions to reset their term counts to zero. Ahead of the 2022 referendum, Tokayev issued an unambiguous pledge against this: "There are no such intentions, nor will there be." In January 2024, responding to what he called "disinformation" about a possible 2026 re-election bid, he reiterated his position in similarly firm terms. Yet an anonymous “Kazakh diplomatic source” told Reuters in February that a new term under the new constitution is a possibility — a disclosure that, whatever its accuracy, suggests at a minimum that Tokayev’s circle may see value in keeping multiple scenarios in play.
A parallel line of speculation concerns Tokayev’s future outside Kazakhstan entirely.
Earlier this year, he denied interest in returning to the United Nations, where he served as Under Secretary-General from 2011 to 2013. Rumors of a bid for the Secretary-General post —ahead of Antonio Gutteres’ tenure concluding at the end of this year — have nonetheless persisted. Tokayev would enter such a race with genuine assets: his mix of East-West diplomatic credentials and relationships across the Global South could make him an attractive consensus candidate, and U.S. President Donald Trump, China’s Xi Jinping, and possibly Russia’s Vladimir Putin would likely prefer him over other candidates currently in view.
His recent diplomatic activity has lent the UN speculation fresh plausibility. Kazakhstan joined the Abraham Accords last year, and Tokayev spent much of the first week of the new war between the Israel-U.S. coalition and Iran in intensive contact with Gulf leaders — including Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, and Haitham bin Tariq Al Said of Oman.
If the president and his team are allowing some ambiguity about his political future to persist, it is likely because they believe it strengthens their hand in the short to medium term and reduces “lame duck” risks.
Speculation over what comes next will almost certainly intensify after the first vice-president appointment is made after parliamentary elections, which are expected later this year.
What is clear for the moment is that the constitutional overhaul has concentrated formal power in the presidency while leaving the question of who will wield that power deliberately open. A political regime that once derived its stability from the certainty of Nazarbayev's permanence is now navigating a far more speculative era.
Chris Rickleton is a journalist living in Almaty. Previously, he was a Central Asia correspondent for RFE/RL and the Central Asia bureau chief for Agence France-Presse. He is a graduate of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.