Parliament Unlikely to Fold

While some members of the Kyrgyz legislature are calling for parliament to be dissolved, most NBCentralAsia observers believe this is unlikely to happen in the near future.



In a November 20 speech, Kamchibek Tashiev urged his fellow deputies to join him in seeking the dissolution of parliament, arguing that this was necessary so as to bring Kyrgyzstan’s governing structures into line with the new constitution.



A week of demonstrations concluded in a deal in which the authorities and the opposition agreed on a new constitution which came into force on November 9. The document stipulates a parliament with 90 members in place of the 75 it has had until now, with half of them elected by proportional representation, and the rest by direct constituency elections as now.



Dissolving parliament would require the consent of 50 of the 75 current members. Tashiev says 25 deputies have already agreed to the plan.



“The president must understand that he's not going to be able to work with this parliament for the next three-and-a-half years [of its term],” said Tashiev. “That would mean we would have nothing but political battles and skirmishing, and no forward movement.”



Deputy speaker Tairbek Sarpashev thinks it highly unlikely that parliament will dissolve itself, although he agrees there will be a need to change the legislative and other branches of power.



“Under the constitution, [electing] a new parliament must go hand in hand with a change of all branches of power,” Sarpashev told NBCentralAsia. “If we only change parliament, it does not solve the problem.”



Omurbek Tekebaev, a former speaker and now an ordinary member of parliament who is one of the leaders of the opposition Movement for Reforms, says the existence of a new constitution means that parliament could opt to disband itself, and he believes that if it were put to a vote, most opposition supporters would be in favour.



But he warns that this could derail the compromise deal agreed by the opposition and the authorities, according to which the institutions of state are supposed to see out their current terms.



Political scientist Tamerlan Ibraimov agrees that dissolution is out of the question at the moment - not least because both a majority in both the legislature and the executive will resist such a move.



He makes the point that President Kurmanbek Bakiev cannot count on a new parliament being any more supportive than the present one.



“Dissolving parliament at a time when passions have not yet cooled following the November unrest could provoke a new outburst of emotion, and more than likely another political crisis,” said Ibraimov.



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