Crisis Engulfs Kyrgyz Parliament

Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiev and Prime Minister Felix Kulov have accused the opposition of trying to mount a coup and usurp power, and their supporters have mounted counter-demonstrations. They were reacting to the overnight decision by opposition members of parliament to convene a body they called the Constituent Assembly, which approved a new constitution.



On November 7, deputies had rejected a set of constitutional amendments that President Bakiev had offered them, but the opposition was unable to gather a quorum that would allow parliament as a whole to pass a different constitution.



NBCentralAsia political observers say the main challenge facing the opposition is to prove that the Constituent Assembly enjoys legitimacy.



The document Bakiev submitted to legislators on November 6 was his own draft rather than the one the opposition had agreed with him. This angered the Movement for Reforms, which immediately stepped up the pressure by shifting what had been a relatively quiet demonstration from the main square into the street facing the main government building. By the afternoon of that day, the number of participants had risen to some 15,000, and the crowd looked ready to break through the fence and seize the building.



It was probably this that forced Bakiev to dismiss Interior Minister Osmonaly Guronov and replace him with Omurbek Suvanaliev, a figure more acceptable to the opposition.



Late on November 6, opposition legislators called an emergency meeting of the 75-seat parliament, asking those present to approve within hours a new version of the constitution produced by the body’s drafting committee.



Under parliament’s rules, 51 deputies would have been needed for this draft to be formally passed, but about 20 pro-Bakiev deputies refused to attend the session, so late the same evening, 38 deputies formed a Constituent Assembly which they said would act for the people of Kyrgyzstan. The assembly duly passed the constitutional draft, which would bolster parliament’s powers while substantially curtailing those of the president.



On the morning of November 7, Bakiev and Kulov accused the opposition of seeking to usurp power.



The majority of commentators interviewed by NBCentralAsia argue that the Constituent Assembly is not legitimate, as there is no law that provides for such an institution to come into being.



“The constitutional draft cannot been deemed to have been passed, because the institution of Constituent Assembly is not legitimate,” said Valentin Bogatyrev, vice-president of the Vostok think-tank.



However, Tamerlan Ibraimov, head of the Centre for Political and Legal Studies, argued that the Constituent Assembly might derive its legitimacy from the people. “If the people view it as legitimate, it can might then be legitimate,” he said, noting that if that happened, laws would need to be put in place to underpin this.



One of the Movement for Reforms leaders, Azimbek Beknazarov, said people already accepted the new body, adding, “A revolutionary process is under way. At such times, bodies like the Constituent Assembly count as legitimate”.



Ishenbay Abdrazakov, a former State Secretary of Kyrgyzstan, said the opposition would also need support from the regions before the Constituent Assembly would count as legitimate. He was probably referring to southern Kyrgyzstan, where support for Bakiev is strongest.



On November 7, several pro-presidential and Communist parties mounted a counter demonstration in front of parliament and also in the southern Kyrgyz towns of Osh, Jalalabad and Batken.



By the afternoon, the number of people at the Bishkek demonstration had grown to between 600 and 800, while 12,000-15,000 opposition supporters rallied outside the government building.



At about four in the afternoon, events began moving fast when 2,000 opposition supporters set off towards the scene of the pro-Bakiev demo, hoping to change people’s minds there. A shouting-match developed and people began throwing plastic bottles at each other.



Police intervened with tear-gas and noise grenades to drive the opposition people away. Close to 2,000 special units and ordinary police separated the two sides and cordoned off the main crowd of oppositional supporters on the square where they were located.



Towards evening, rumours began circulating that police would break up the rally overnight. However, NBCentralAsia commentators said they believed the use of force could be counterproductive, and predicted that President Bakiev would not take this step.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)