Kazakhstan’s long-serving president Nursultan Nazarbayev on Monday asked a constitution council to examine a proposed referendum on another decade of unchallenged rule, which would allow him to bypass two elections and lead the country unopposed until 2020.
On December 27, the Central Election Commission registered a statement by the initiative group in favor of such a plebiscite, which was endorsed by both houses of parliament. In their letter to Nazarbayev, the legislators asked him “to support the initiative to call a national referendum on the following question: Do you accept the law on Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, envisaging the possibility of extending in a national referendum the powers of the first president of Kazakhstan?”