CAP POLICY BRIEF by Sofya Du Boulay and Dinissa Duvanova, March 23, 2026
Sofya Du Boulay is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in Politics at the University of Sussex. She is a political scientist specialising in authoritarianism in post-Soviet Eurasia, with extensive professional experience in both international organisations and academia. Her research on power legitimation and succession published in Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Problems of Post-Communism.
Dinissa Duvanova is a Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University. She is a political economist specializing in governance, bureaucratic politics, and technologyenabled forms of political participation in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. She received a PhD in political science from the Ohio State University. She held research and teaching positions at Princeton University and SUNY Buffalo, was a visiting fellow at the NYU Jordan Center, and was a US Fulbright Scholar at Alma University in Kazakhstan. She is an author of numerous articles and two books: Building Business in Post- Communist Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia: Collective Goods, Selective Incentives, and Predatory States (Cambridge UP 2013) and Thieves, Opportunists, and Autocrats: Building Regulatory States in Russia and Kazakhstan (Oxford UP 2023).
Policy context and problem statement
Under the Under the guise of government efficiency, Tokayev uses a national constitutional referendum to legitimise the continuing institutionalisation of authoritarianism.
At a critical juncture in the post-Nazarbayev era, Kazakhstan adopted its third constitution since independence. On March 15, 2026, 73 percent of eligible voters participated in a national referendum, 87 percent supporting the new constitution. The changes affected approximately 84% of Kazakhstan’s Constitution, raising many questions about the political significance of this move for Tokayev’s incumbency and the future of autocracy in Kazakhstan. The text of the new constitution, first presented to the public on January 31, 2026, features “a progressive human rights rhetoric coinciding with the mechanisms of autocratic concentration of power”. The constitutional proposal is an important step in the 7-year-long power transition, but it is unclear whether Tokayev’s move is aimed at reinforcing his personalistic regime or further solidifying authoritarian institutionalization. This question is central to understanding the long-term political dynamics in Kazakhstan and the sources of modern autocratic resilience. We argue that from the vantage point of larger discursive changes in defining power relations and the role of the state, the constitutional reform is a significant step towards and evidence of continuing institutionalization of autocracy and a move away from personalistic mechanisms of power. The constitutional reform is a decisive development in authoritarian legitimacy-building cantered not around the leader’s personality, but around institutional efficiency.
Constitutions and Autocracy in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s first constitution was adopted in 1993, establishing a semi-presidential form of government. The second, 1995 constitution set the foundation for the superpresidential regime, allowing the 1st post-independence president, N. Nazarbayev, to concentrate immense power in his hands, handpicking ministers, reshuffling provincial elites, presiding over an obedient bicameral legislature, and stifling political opposition and independent press until 2019, when he passed on the reins of power to a long-time loyalist K. Tokayev. At the time, analysts debated whether the leadership transition really took place, pointing out life-long immunity and the permanent security council position of Nazarbayev and the fact that key members of Nazarbayev’s family retained their central positions in the corridors of power.
The events of Bloody January 2022 have revealed a hidden elite tension, mass disenchantment with the political and economic system, and an urgent call for change. They prompted the government to reconsider its relations with the Nazarbayev-era legacies. Tokayev publicly acknowledged popular grievances against corrupt elites plundering national resources at the expense of ordinary people and embarked on a cautious course of political reforms (‘Listening State’, ‘New Kazakhstan’) aimed at improving government effectiveness, public service delivery, and responsiveness to the popular demands. This good governance campaign, however, was met with widespread scepticism and did not increase political legitimacy or trust in the president or the state.
As part of Tokayev’s “de-Nazarbayevization” reforms, several constitutional amendments were introduced by the government and approved in the 2022 referendum. These included removal of many symbolic and substantive markers of the Nazarbayev era, such as special political guarantees for Nazarbayev, the right of legislative initiative, greater judicial review powers, and limiting the presidential tenure to one 7-year term. The key feature of the constitutional overhaul in 2022 was the continuing dismantling and reconfiguration of institutions associated with the previous political order. Those amendments were concessions to a society that expected the liberalization of the political system. Tokayev’s reformist and liberal agenda elevated public expectations for political change while constraining the regime’s capacity to rely on repressive measures.
In September 2025, Tokayev announced the need to “finally part with the superpresidential form of government and transition to a parliamentary republic.” To strengthen the power of the national legislature, he would replace the bicameral parliament with a unicameral Kurultai. In addition to the consolidation of two legislative chambers, the new constitution introduces a party-list SMD electoral system, reinstates the position of president-appointed prime minister, increases executive controls over the judiciary, and creates an unelected National Assembly (Khalyk Kenesi)—a consultative body with the right of legislative initiative.
Interpreting Constitutional Reform
Pandits had offered different readings on the timing and political objectives of the constitutional reforms, situating them within the national and regional political dynamics. The first question on the mind of many observers is drawn from the previous experiences of autocratic constitutional changes. Both in the 1995 Kazakh reform and in 2014 in Russia, constitutional changes were used by the executives to reset their term limits. Although Nazarbayev had already served his presidential term in 1995, the new countdown began with his 1995 presidential election.
The 2026 constitution does not restart President Tokayev’s term or extend the limits; however, the subsequent laws that Tokayev urges the current parliament to pass before the next legislative elections this summer may redefine Tokayev’s eligibility to run again.
The second interpretation of the constitutional reform proceeds through the logic of autocratic learning, or institutional mimicry. Observers point to a number of similarities between Russia’s new constitutional norms and those found in the new Kazakh proposal, including the explicit definition of marriage, priority of national legislation over the norms of international law, and the parliamentary right to dismiss individual ministers.
The third set of explanations—the official narrative of the Kazakh government and official press—is that the constitutional reform promotes new instruments of governance, which, according to one observer, strengthen “the role of law in regulating social relations.” The official rhetoric emphasizes the need for greater efficiency of institutions of government and responsiveness (not accountability!) promulgated by Tokayev under the banner of “hearing government.” Although all these narratives are plausible, they miss the larger picture and understate the socio-political significance of the proposed constitutional reform for Kazakhstan and regional authoritarianism more broadly. Below, we argue that the 2026 constitutional reform in Kazakhstan signals a shift toward a more institutionalized form of authoritarian governance rather than an attempt to consolidate his personal rule and strengthen his incumbency.
Institutionalization of Executive Control
The new constitution expands presidential authority, undermining official assurances of a transition away from a super-presidential model and codifying and legalizing hardening autocracy. The president will acquire the power to appoint the heads of key institutions— including the Constitutional Court, the National Bank, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the National Security Committee—and to unilaterally shape the composition of the Constitutional Court, the Central Election Commission, and the Supreme Audit Chamber. This reflects Tokayev’s concentration of power and reliance on a loyal bureaucracy.
Structures that once anchored Nazarbayev’s personal authority—most notably the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan—have been politically downgraded or repositioned. While this institution previously functioned as a pillar of regime legitimacy and interethnic cohesion, its reduced prominence suggests an effort by the current leadership to distance the political system from Nazarbayev-era channels of patronage. Instead, the reforms seek to reposition legitimacy around state institutions, administrative performance, and national consultative mechanisms such as the Khalyk Kenesi.
The reforms also introduce new formal structures designed to distribute authority across institutions while maintaining strong executive dominance. Measures such as the creation of a vice-presidential post, the elevation of the Khalyk Kenesi as a consultative political forum, and the consolidation of a one-chamber parliamentary system have been presented by the government as mechanisms to improve state efficiency and administrative coordination. Official discourse frames these changes as part of a modernization agenda aimed at strengthening institutional performance and policy delivery. However, these reforms primarily reinforce the formal mechanisms of executive control and state aggrandizement while giving the appearance of institutional pluralism. The creation of a unicameral parliament is a clear sign of strengthening the formal mechanisms of executive control. A single (and smaller) parliamentary body elected in party list elections is certainly easier to control through party discipline or formal negotiations than cadres spread across multiple chambers, which for decades were managed through a combination of informal patronage at the national and local levels. Recent research demonstrated that the Tokayev regime carefully regulated the access of selected élite members to seats in the Mazhilis or the Senate in order to strengthen regime control over parliamentary debates and legislative agendas.
Another key feature of autocratic institutionalisation is the reintroduction of a vicepresident as a clear formal path of executive succession. This has been identified as the key measure to avoid the repetition of the circumstances that marred the end of the long Nazarbayev era, characterised by intra-regime fissures that led to the public eruption of violence during the turbulent events of Bloody January in 2022. The appointment of a younger deputy to the Kazakhstani president may mitigate the risk of regime splits as the Tokayev presidency approaches its conclusion, while familiarising the wider population with the political figure who will access power after the end of Tokayev’s tenure in 2029.
The vice-presidency post creates an institutional mechanism for testing potential successors and shaping the political legacy of Tokayev. Comparable arrangements can be observed in other post-Soviet contexts—for example, the elevation of Mehriban Aliyeva to the vice-presidency in Azerbaijan in 2017, which served to formalise succession planning within the ruling elite and the political rise of Pashayev’s clan.
In the economic domain, the new constitution, for the first time in the country’s history, codifies the protection of property rights from state encroachment. What this protection really means in practice will only be clear after the subsequent legislation translates it into actionable rights. Yet, at least symbolically, the change signals a move towards the institutionalisation of the existing distribution of economic power. This codification of property guarantees is a clear attempt to move away from informal patronage as the primary mechanism of protecting the interests of economic elites and may be welcomed by Nazarbayev’s cronies as a guarantee of their continuing economic dominance in the new Kazakhstan.
These reforms are less about liberalization and more about reorganizing how power is exercised within the state. By restructuring political institutions while preserving strong executive oversight, the amendments aim to consolidate a more durable form of institutional authoritarianism—one that relies less on personal networks and more on formalized mechanisms of state governance.
Changes in the discursive legitimacy
Tokayev’s decision to announce constitutional reforms at the National Kurultai—national consultative body created by Tokayev in 2022 (not to be confused with the newly renamed parliament)—underscores the symbolic function of the forum as a stage for reframing the bases of political authority. By convening this gathering outside the capital—in cities such as Kyzylorda (the second capital of Soviet Kazakhstan), Turkistan, and Atyrau—the government curates a narrative of regional inclusion and historical continuity. These carefully choreographed locations evoke Kazakhstan’s cultural and territorial foundations, presenting the reforms not merely as technocratic adjustments but as expressions of a collective national will and decolonisation effort. The Kurultai has operated as a symbolic arena through which the president articulates ideological messages to the public. Adopting a name with deep historical and symbolic resonance for Kazakhs serves to obscure the largely ceremonial role of the parliament. By anchoring constitutional change in this symbolic gathering convened outside of the Nazarbayev-era symbols of power, Tokayev cultivates an image of authority that appears rooted in the nation rather than inherited from the institutional legacy of his predecessor.
From this perspective, Kazakhstan’s new constitution can be understood not only as a next step towards autocratic institutionalisation but also as a sign of the erosion of incumbency, which reflects a gradual decline in the structural advantages traditionally enjoyed by the incumbent officeholders, particularly their ability to retain power through institutional control, electoral dominance, or political legitimacy. Tokayev’s shaky position in the Nazarbayev era patronage networks, declining relevance of Nazarbayev-centered autocratic legitimation, and the unresolved conflict over elites’ access to economic rents weaken his incumbency over time and reduce the probability of remaining in power.
Constitutional reform, in this situation, is a form of statecraft to manage the crisis amid rapid economic and geopolitical change. The constitutional referendum in Kazakhstan has undermined the legitimacy of incumbency, fostering societal cynicism as citizens increasingly view institutions and political processes as formalities or symbolic displays. Kazakh political scientist Dosym Satpayev describes the referendum outcome as a ‘simulation,’ in which the state acts as if the population supports its authority, while citizens act as if they trust the state. There is no political innovation involved in Tokayev’s constitutional change, he follows the script of his predecessor, substituting reform with repression.
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