Constitution in two minutes

Confrontation between authorities and opposition in Kyrgyzstan ends with fireworks

Yesterday at midnight, Ala-Too Square in Bishkek was lit up with fireworks. Thus, a week-long rally of the Kyrgyz opposition greeted the news that the parliament had adopted a new constitution for Kyrgyzstan. How this process took place will certainly be included in the history and jurisprudence textbooks, at least in this small Central Asian republic itself.

According to the regulations of the Kyrgyz parliament, amended by a decree of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and signed less than an hour before the vote on the constitution, deputies received the right to adopt a new version of the basic law. To do this, it was necessary to consider the draft of this new edition in two readings. The text of the draft was agreed upon a couple of hours before the vote by a conciliation commission of a dozen people consisting of opposition and pro-presidential deputies, as well as representatives of the presidential administration. A few minutes later, this project was presented to parliament on behalf of the president.

It took the deputies two (!) minutes to read the main law of the country - one for each reading. With such unprecedented speed, 65 votes were cast in favor of the constitution from the 75-seat parliament. It is unlikely that anyone checked the presented text; the deputies took their colleagues’ word for it. Although even half an hour before the vote, two opposition deputies feared that in the confusion they would be handed the wrong text.

As Vremya Novostey learned from informed sources in the Kyrgyz presidential administration, such a successful and quick outcome of the constitutional and political crisis in the country was predetermined yesterday as a result of a demarche undertaken in the middle of the day by the Kyrgyz government. Having refused to recognize the legitimacy of the “constituent assembly” proclaimed by a group of deputies the previous night and, therefore, to implement its decisions, the government, in order to avoid an escalation of the crisis in relations with parliament, decided to resign.

The resignation letter, signed by cabinet ministers led by Prime Minister Felix Kulov, was to be submitted today to President Bakiyev if no compromise could be found in developing a draft constitution acceptable to all parties. According to Vremya Novostei sources, Prime Minister Kulov insisted on such a demarche, believing that he had fulfilled the promises he had made to ensure stability in the country and order in the capital during the opposition rally. Responsibility for the unrest that occurred on November 7 as a result of a clash between supporters of the president and the opposition was taken by one of the opposition leaders, ex-speaker Omurbek Tekebaev. The actions of the government, as they say in Bishkek, found understanding with the president, which gave reason to talk about the viability of the Bakiyev-Kulov tandem at the most difficult moment of the crisis.

As a result, the compromise version of the constitution turned out to be less radical in terms of limiting the powers of the country's president compared to the draft submitted to parliament by Felix Kulov. In the “prime minister’s” draft, ministers were approved by parliament. In the draft adopted yesterday, their candidacies are agreed upon by the prime minister and the president.

Today, if the presidential administration manages to translate the constitution from Russian into Kyrgyz, it will be signed by the head of state. Then, at the beginning of next week, after parliament has adopted the procedure for putting the basic law into effect, the new constitution will begin to work. However, in essence, everything will remain basically the same for now. The president and deputies will retain their powers until 2010. And the functioning of the government will depend on the will of the deputies. But all participants in the failed Kyrgyz revolution on both sides of the barricades consider themselves winners.

Arkady DUBNOV