Constitutional framework

Kazakhstan’s first postindependence constitution was adopted in 1993, replacing the Soviet-era constitution that had been in force since 1978; a new constitution was approved in 1995. The 1995 constitution provided for legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government dominated by a strong executive, although amendments in 2017 and 2022 reduced presidential authority. In 2026 a new constitution was introduced that extensively transformed the legislature and reintroduced a strong executive.

Kazakhstan is a unitary republic with a unicameral legislature (Quryltai; also spelled Kurultai or Kuryltai). The Quryltai consists of 145 deputies who are elected by proportional vote to five-year terms. It has the authority to amend the constitution, approve the budget, confirm presidential appointments, and declare war. The People’s Council (Halyq Keñesı), a consultative body parallel to the legislature, is formed according to a statutory process: its 126 members are appointed by the president, a third from ethnocultural associations, a third from local governments, and a third from civil society. It can advise on policy, propose legislation to the Quryltai, and initiate referendums.

The president is the head of state and is directly elected for a maximum of one seven-year term; the constitution prohibits amendment of this term length and term limit. The president appoints the vice president, prime minister, and other ministers of the cabinet, as well as the chairperson of the National Security Committee, most of whom are then confirmed by the legislature; the foreign minister, minister of defense, and minister of internal affairs are appointed without requiring legislative consent. Under certain circumstances, such as a parliamentary gridlock in the confirmation of presidential appointments, the president may dissolve the Quryltai and rule by decree until elections are held. The president serves as commander in chief of the armed forces and is responsible for the country’s foreign relations.

The highest judicial body is the Supreme Court, and there also are a number of lower courts. Judges serve life terms and are appointed by the president, with those of the Supreme Court also subject to confirmation by the legislature. Judges of the Constitutional Court, which considers questions related to the constitution, are appointed by the president and confirmed by the legislature and are limited to one eight-year term.

The 2026 constitution follows the previous constitution in specifying a number of rights of the citizens of Kazakhstan, including freedom of speech, religion, and movement. Citizens have the right to work, to own property, and to form trade unions. However, the 2026 constitution allows those rights to be restricted for matters such as national security, public order, public health, and public morality, and lacks the previous constitution’s commitment to grant primacy to international conventions. The new constitution also introduced provisions enshrining the responsibility of parents in the upbringing of their children and the requirement for adults to care for their incapacitated parents and defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

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Armed forces

Kazakhstan possesses a small army, air force, and navy. During the Soviet period a vast nuclear arsenal was stationed in Kazakh territory. Kazakhstan ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1993, however, and by 1995 it had dismantled or returned to Russia all of its inherited warheads. Since 1994 the country has been a full member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led military alliance closely associated with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Education

Kazakhstan moved to profoundly influence the future course of education in 1989 when it declared Kazakh the official language of the republic, though in the 1995 constitution Russian was also officially acknowledged. Prior to independence, Russian generally served as the language of government and of education in the Kazakh S.S.R. Many younger Kazakhs, educated entirely in Russian, scarcely knew the traditional language of their people. The shift to the Kazakh language affected classroom instruction, textbooks, newspapers, and such media as television and cinema, all of which contribute to public education. The process of conversion to Kazakh-oriented communication began immediately and greatly affected the educational system. Few Russians speak and write Kazakh well. Implicit in the change has been the necessity for teachers to have a fluent knowledge of Kazakh, a requirement that tends to remove Slavic personnel from the elementary and secondary classrooms for Kazakh children. In addition, the number of schools dedicated to education in Kazakh has increased, while the number of Russian-language schools has declined. Nevertheless, Russian remains widely in use.

A major reorganization of the curricula and redesign of textbooks began in the years after 1989. The study of Kazakh history, literature, and culture, long slighted in general education, now receives appropriate attention in school curricula. The institutes in the National Academy of Sciences (founded 1946) focus their research on subjects important to Kazakhstan, in science as well as in the humanities. During the Soviet era, scholars faced restrictions that hampered their research and interpretation of findings, but many serious works long proscribed by communist censors were later printed after independence.

In addition to the Academy of Sciences, higher educational institutions include the Kazakh al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Karaganda Buketov University, and a number of polytechnical, agricultural, veterinary, and other facilities in Almaty. Medical and teachers’ institutes function in Qarağandy, and different institutions can be found at other regional centers. A network of vocational schools offers specialized secondary and technical training.

Health and welfare

Housing, medical care, and other services are inadequate, despite large outlays by municipalities and the republic to keep up with the expanding population. Housing and other shortages exacerbate ethnic tension between Kazakhs, Russians, Uyghurs, and other city dwellers, tensions that equitable distribution can partly alleviate.

Rates of infant and maternal morbidity and mortality, though lower than in other Central Asian republics, are far higher in Kazakhstan than in Western countries because of an unbalanced diet, environmental pollution, and inadequate prenatal care. Life expectancy is low compared with the West. Although sanatoriums and hospitals exist in many locations, they dispense a level of medical care far below that considered standard in the West.

Public health suffers greatly in heavily industrialized areas, such as Qarağandy province, because Soviet authorities never seriously made environmental protection a high priority. In the vicinity of the Aral Sea, and especially in Qyzylorda (Kzyl-Orda) and Aqtöbe provinces, Kazakhs suffer from the pollution and salinization of the sea. Its waters are contaminated with pesticides, especially DDT, and with chemical fertilizer fed into it by various rivers. The contraction of the Aral Sea has left a toxic dust in the newly formed salt flats, leading to respiratory disorders and other health problems. In Qyzylorda province the toxic emissions from rocket launches and related activities in the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam introduced additional industrial pollution into the area. But the most serious general health problems in Kazakhstan arise from the widespread radiation poisoning of the soil, food products, and water sources of eastern Kazakhstan, especially Semei province, where the Soviet military command for decades exposed almost one million people to nuclear weapons testing. Birth defects, cancer, and other illnesses related to radiation poisoning occur with unusual frequency among people in the region. These severe health hazards led the cultural and medical intelligentsia of Kazakhstan to organize mass demonstrations to protest the continued poisoning of Kazakhstan by nuclear testing and development in adjacent sites in Lop Nor in northwestern China after Soviet nuclear tests in eastern Kazakhstan had ceased.