Constitution key factor of #Kazakhstan success

Kazakhstan is set to celebrate the 21st anniversary of its constitution, the decisive moment on the road to the country becoming an independent state. The anniversary, today 30 August, is one of the most important state holidays in the country and will be marked across Kazakhstan.

On this date in 1995 as a result of a national referendum, the constitution was adopted establishing the principles of building an independent, sovereign, economically liberal and democratic Kazakhstan.

The law is designed to "strengthen the foundations of the constitutional order, the rights and freedoms of a man and citizen."

More than eight million people took part in the referendum in 1995 and the charter, approved by 90 per cent of voters, declared Kazakhstan a country with a presidential government.

Four years earlier, on December 16, 1991, the landlocked country took the first tentative steps on the road to a full democracy when it declared independence from the Soviet Union becoming the last Soviet republic to do so.

During the first years of independence, the old constitution of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, modelled on the 1977 Soviet constitution, remained in force.

The first constitution of the newly independent Kazakhstan was adopted in 1993. Not without controversy, it sparked fierce debate on the authority of the legislative and executive branches of the government so a new constitution was drafted.

Over the years, the constitution has proved instrumental in pushing through economic reforms and maintaining political and social stability, as was evidenced most recently when Polish President Andrzej Duda and his Kazakhstan counterpart signed a key agreement on economic cooperation between the two countries.

But what else has been achieved in the 21 years since the constitution was adopted?

Well, the peaceful integration of over 130 various nationalities and ethnic groups that live in Kazakhstan is seen as one important achievement. In recognition of these groups in the nation and their history, the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan was set up. It is an organization that works to promote inter-ethnic cohesion and ensures representation for the nation’s ethnic groups in the parliament.

Another achievement is ever closer economic cooperation with European countries, such as Poland.

According to the Agency of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the bilateral trade in 2015 with Poland, an EU member state, was $1.13 billion (export – $789.2 million, import – $340.8 million).

Indeed, despite the global recession, the country remains attractive for foreign investors and the FDI in Kazakhstan totaled $11 billion in January-September 2015.

In this period, Kazakh economy's main investors were the Netherlands (33.6 percent), the US (16.6 percent), Switzerland (12.8 percent), France (6.1 percent), the UK (5.6 percent), Belgium (5.5 percent), Russia (4.7 percent), Italy (3.6 percent), Germany (3.1 percent), South Korea (3 percent) and Japan (2.4 percent).

The country has traditionally been considered a good business investment and this remains the case.

In fact, Kazakhstan has attracted about $33 billion foreign direct investment during the period of the first five-year plan of industrialization, half of which was invested in a program for the industrial-innovative development of the country

Kazakhstan is also credited with recently helping to bring about a thaw in relations between its close neighbours, Turkey and Russia which had been in deep freeze of late. For many observers, this further demonstrates Kazakhstan’s active commitment to promoting dialogue and constructive relations whenever it can.

On the energy front, multinational oil companies have long known about Kazakhstan’s wealth and are continuing to invest in its mineral future.  

But the country is not using its subsoil wealth solely for its own enrichment: it has developed a particular expertise in the area of uranium mining, processing and storage.

Kazakh hospitality has also played an important role in its recent history with the nation opening its arms, and homes, to Soviet deportees. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Kazakhstan received hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, sometimes entire ethnicities ousted by the Soviet leadership from their homelands and thrown to the steppes for survival.

Even on the sporting front Kazakhstan has made great strides, winning the most medals in its history at the recently concluded Olympics in Rio. Kazakh athletes claimed 17 medals – three gold, five silver, and nine bronze - and Kazakhstan finished a lofty 22nd place in the medal tally among 206 countries.

On the constitution, President Nazarbayev says, "The unity of the people, public and spiritual concord and political stability as the fundamental principles of the constitutional system. The constitution provides the ground for economic growth and increase in the citizens' welfare."

"Our constitution," he adds, " is a solid basis for implementing the aim of bringing Kazakhstan into the club of top 30 most developed countries of the world.”

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