Kyrgyz Rewrite Leadership Succession Rules

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament has been forced to rethink plans to change the rules on who steps in if the head of state cannot continue in office.



Deputies were forced to reconsider the reform, which was proposed by President Kurmanbek Bakiev, after the country’s constitutional court rejected it on a technicality.



At the moment, should the president step down unexpectedly, for example due to illness, the constitution says the speaker of parliament can fill in as head of state until an election is held. If for some reason the speaker cannot do it, the prime minister is next in line.



President Bakiev wanted to change this to a system where the choice of interim replacement would fall to the Presidential Institution, a new administrative structure which he unveiled late last year, but which has yet to come into being.



Doing so would have reduced the certainty that the temporary president was in some way a representative of the public, like the speaker or prime minister, since the Presidential Institution – made up of non-elected executives – might make some other choice.



The bill, which consists of a package of changes to the constitution to bring it into line with governance reforms announced by the president last October.



Tasked with checking the legality of the amendments, the constitutional court ruled on the emergency appointment issue on January 21, rejecting it on the grounds that the Presidential Institution is an advisory rather than a decision-making body, and consequently lacks the authority to pick a temporary head of state.



Court chairwoman Svetlana Sydykova said this provision needed revision, and sent the bill back to parliament.



This created a dilemma for a legislature that is dominated by the president’s party Ak Jol, as members now had to get their leader’s reform package through while at the same time accommodating the court’s objections.



Ak Jol members came up with a new arrangement designed to kill both birds with one stone. The parliamentary committee tasked with redrafting the bill produced a proposal to that would, as Bakiev wants, abolish the automatic delegation of power to the speaker or premier. Instead, a new entity called the State Council will be set up, and it will be its job to appoint an interim president.



The details have yet to be worked out, and separate legislation will be needed to constitute the new body.



It is known, though, that the State Council will include the prime minister, the speaker as well as members of the Presidential Institution. In remarks made on February 2, opposition parliamentarian Roza Otunbaeva indicated that the latter were likely to include the head of the president’s office, his communications chief, the State Adviser for Defence, Security and Law and Order and the director of the Central Agency for Development, Investment and Innovation. These last two posts were created as part of Bakiev’s governance reforms and give the Presidential Institution strategic oversight of security and economic policy and planning.



Placing such an important decision in the hands of a narrow group of unelected officials would be a major change to the constitutional system.



The Presidential Institution includes some elected officials like the president himself, who acts as its chairman, and the speaker of parliament. The cabinet is represented by the prime minister and foreign minister, but the rest of the Presidential Institution’s members are directly appointed by the head of state.



The net result is to place more power in the president’s hands at the expense of the prime minister and his cabinet. Under his control, the Presidential Institution has wide-ranging powers, including some that previously belonged to the government, for example foreign policy and control over security and economic policymaking.



In turbulent times, it is important to have clear legal procedures in place for the transfer of power, so that this happens promptly and effectively. The current system, where the leadership role temporarily goes to one of two officials, is simple and logical and has stood the test of time.



It was put to the test during the “Tulip Revolution” of March 2005, when mounting popular unrest put an end to the rule of the then president Askar Akaev. He left the country, his prime minister resigned, and Kyrgyzstan seemed to be facing a parliamentary vacuum as the old legislature’s mandate was expiring and the new one had yet to form.



At that critical moment, the speaker of the old parliament was able to step in as head of state for less than 24 hours and facilitate the appointment of a prime minister. The latter post went to Bakiev, who ex officio assumed the role of interim president until he was elected to the job in July 2005.



This experience, of a system that worked under stress, is one that should be remembered when the terms of the new constitutional arrangement are being worked out.



The next stage now is for President Bakiev to approve the proposed State Council, after which the entire package of changes can be put to a vote in parliament. Once that happens, the bill will get its second hearing in three months’ time, after which it could become law.



Pavel Dyatlenko is an expert at the Polis Asia Centre, a think-tank in Bishkek.