23 articles of the Constitution to be amended - President

    According to the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, 23 articles of the Constitution will be amended, Kazinform reports.
    He announced that today during a meeting on redistribution of powers.
    "It is clear to us that the main political model of Kazakhstan will be kept. We will stick to a Presidential republic. However, the public administration should be flexible in order to meet the requirements of the time" said Nursultan Nazarbayev.
    The Head of State stressed that the outcome of the reforms, branches will have their separate powers and work independently. In this regard, each branch should feel responsible.
    "We are to decide the fate of this important for our future document. We must now take stock and decide what to do next, and to determine when to submit the document to the Parliament. 23 articles of the Constitution will be amended. Also - 35 laws. I want to stress here that all this is being done to transfer some powers of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan to other branches of government. You know that other countries hold referendums to increase presidential powers and to amend Constitutions. With us it is different as in 25 years, presidential system fulfilled its and people's tasks", Nursultan Nazarbayev said.
    According to President Nazarbayev, the public has supported the amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan on redistribution of powers.
    "Today, we gathered to discuss the most important issues for the country on amendments and additions to our Constitution, the main purpose of which is to redistribute powers between the government branches", he said at his meeting in Akorda today.
    The head of State stressed that, given the importance of this issue, upon his instruction, the draft amendments prepared by the working group were put up for public discussion.
    "I have closely followed the discussion and state that its objectives were achieved. For the most part, people supported the changes we are making. Today we will review the proposals and opinions of citizens, summarise them and make a decision about our further actions", - said Nursultan Nazarbayev.
    In turn, the head of the Executive Office Adilbek Dzhaksybekov informed that during the public discussion working group received more than 6,000 proposals.
    During a meeting of the working group on redistribution of powers, President Nursultan Nazarbayev recommended leaving Article 26 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan in its current version, Kazinform correspondent reports citing Akorda's Twitter account.
    "Public discussion has shown the lack of agreement on only one question, Article 26. A lot of work of work has been done by our lawyers on it. An explanation has been (...) I suggest to leave the Article 26 in its current version", said the President.
    Earlier Head of the Executive Office Adilbek Dzhaksybekov reporting to President about the proposals on the constitutional reform said that the working group received more than 6,000 of them.
    He also noted the group has received a significant number of proposals considering amendments to the Article 26 of the Constitution.
    "On this issue, there was an open discussion and opinions were different - some citizens appreciate these norms and some offer their version. However, many people asked not to amend the 26^th article. There also were proposals to strengthen the role of the state language and giving English an official status", said Dzhaksybekov.
    Reported by Kazinform.