Kazakhstan opens a 145-seat Kurultai and elects Tokayev's party chief as speaker

Kazakhstan's new unicameral parliament, the Kurultai, held its first session in Astana on Friday, 28 August. Deputies elected Aibek Dadebay, chairman of the ruling Adilet party and a former head of the Presidential Administration, as speaker by secret ballot. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev opened the sitting and called the new house a landmark in the country's political overhaul. The Constitution that created it took effect on 1 July.

The Central Election Commission registered 145 deputies from five parties after the 23 August vote. Turnout was 74.08 percent. Adilet took about 71 percent of the vote and 110 seats. Auyl has 10, Respublica 9, Aq Zhol 8 and the Nationwide Social Democratic Party 8. Only 36 people who sat in the old Mazhilis or Senate kept a seat. One hundred and eleven of the 145 faces are new.

Women hold 49 seats, 33.8 percent. That is the highest female share in any Kazakh parliament. The previous peak was 27 percent after the 2016 Mazhilis election. Nurlan Beknazarov of Adilet and Daniya Yesspayeva of Aq Zhol were elected deputy chairs. Eight standing committees filled their chairs the same day, including finance, digitalisation, agrarian affairs and constitutional legislation.

What the new house can actually do

The Kurultai approves the president's nominees for vice president, prime minister, Constitutional Court judges, Central Election Commission members and the Supreme Audit Chamber. It elects Supreme Court judges on the president's recommendation. Those appointment powers are wider on paper than the old lower house enjoyed. The old Senate is gone. So is the bicameral design that had been in place since 1995.

Function may not match form. The Diplomat noted that Tokayev spent the week before the sitting setting the agenda himself. On 27 August he said he would ask deputies to consider a social-media ban for children under 16, continuing a bill filed in June. Dadebay, thanking Tokayev for nominating him, called the speakership an honour and a responsibility and said the scale of reforms needed "well-balanced decisions." That is the language of a house that expects to receive work, not invent it.

A new name on an old majority

Adilet is a new party label on a familiar majority. Dadebay moved from the presidential apparatus to the party leadership and then to the speaker's chair in a short arc. Opposition parties that reached the chamber did so inside an officially sanctioned field. A 110-seat bloc can pass almost anything the presidency sends.

Deputies swore an oath to the people of Kazakhstan on Friday. Five-year terms start now. The first test is not the oath. It is whether the under-16 social media bill, the appointment lists and the rest of Tokayev's September file move through committee as written. The Kurultai has the numbers. It has not yet shown a habit of saying no.