MP Sarym: parliament’s influence is growing slowly but surely

MP Aidos Sarym has dismissed public scepticism about the effect of the recent strengthening of the Kazakh legislative body’s powers, saying it is a work in progress.

Sarym, a former opposition activist who is now an MP for the ruling Amanat Party, said the parliament was only just learning how to use its new expanded powers.

He said parliament was becoming more assertive and professional. Whereas most bills used to be drafted by the government, at least a third of the bills considered by parliament in the past few years have been worked out by MPs themselves.

“Even the draft laws that come from the government get amended by 60-80 percent,” he told Exclusive.kz in an interview.

Sarym added that one of the parliament’s successes was the law on returning assets illegally taken out of the country.  

He said the bill had been initiated and drafted by MPs and since its adoption Kazakhstan had recovered over 3bn dollars of stolen funds, which are now being used to build schools.

Sarym said one of the main issues that limited how much parliament could achieve was the lack of expertise among MPs.

“We may look like a big country, but the reality is that we have only a few brilliant brains in every sector … and they have already been hired by the private sector, where they get good money, or they work in government,” he said.

He said that to address that steps had been taken to strengthen with more funding and better staffing the Institute of Parliamentarism, which is in charge of giving expert assessment to new bills.

Talking about the recent rejection by Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov of the MPs’ initiative to introduce a mechanism of parliamentary investigations, Sarym admitted that there was not enough expertise among MPs to conduct serious investigations.

“Unfortunately, this problem has become particularly evident in the work of various parliamentary groups. I will be honest, our civil society might beat its breast as much as it pleases, but it has expertise only in two or three areas. How do we conduct investigations in this situation? I think it is something that we’ll be able to do only when we reach a certain level of maturity,” Sarym said.

However, he added, parliament can still “summon any minister and monitor [government] activities”.

“Parliamentary sessions are broadcast by two TV channels and across all social media. Parliament is a place where government ministers come with trepidation. The MPs now understand their powers, they know the ropes,” Sarym said.

Sarym added that despite parliament’s openness, representatives of the public do not show much interest in attending parliamentary groups’ meetings on various issues.

“If an activist really wants to achieve something they need to have, excuse me, a strong ‘bottom’ so they can sit in meetings for hours and defend their position,” Sarym added.

Sarym said the general criticism of the political reforms under President Tokayev as being too cautious is partially to do with “heightened expectations”.

“It is a work in progress. The main thing is, no matter how much criticism we get, we are more in tune with reality.”

By Karlygash Yezhenova

• 27
• 35