KYRGYSTAN: Opponents and supporters of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev hammer out final details of a new constitution while demonstrators keep up street protest

Record ID: 858090

  • Title: KYRGYSTAN: Opponents and supporters of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev hammer out final details of a new constitution while demonstrators keep up street protest
  • Date: 8th November 2006
  • Summary: (W3) BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN (NOVEMBER 8, 2006) (REUTERS) KYRGYZ RIOT POLICE NEAR VEHICLES KYRGYZ RIOT POLICE NEAR TREES, SOME EATING KYRGYZ SOLDIERS JOGGING ACROSS ROAD VARIOUS OF A KYRGYZ OFFICER BRIEFING GROUP OF RIOT POLICE
  • Embargoed: 23rd November 2006 12:00
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  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVABXU0MDL2UW5WODBPDZX7210O6
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  • Story Text: Opponents and supporters of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev hammered out final details of a new constitution on Wednesday (November 8), while demonstrators from both sides kept up street protests.
    Politicians drawing up the new draft, which would cut the president's powers, hoped to put it to parliament on Wednesday.
    Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered in the main square in the capital Bishkek for a seventh consecutive day to demand Bakiyev resign for backtracking on democratic reform promises he made when he came to power last year.
    "Bakiyev out!" they shouted, waving balloons and opposition red and blue flags.
    Lines of Interior Ministry soldiers stood between opposition supporters and an estimated 300 demonstrators who had gathered a few hundred metres (yards) away outside the parliament building to protest in support of Bakiyev.
    Violence erupted for the first time on Tuesday when riot police fired tear gas to break up fighting between the groups.
    Impoverished and mountainous Kyrgyzstan is at the heart of the Central Asian region, where China, Russia and the United States are jostling for influence over natural resources, and worry that civil disorder may spread to other countries.
    Russia, and the United States both have an airbase in Kyrgyzstan.
    Bakiyev was elected president last year after his predecessor, Askar Akayev, fled the country following violent protests against a flawed parliamentary election.
    But his control of the country has been fragile from the outset, raising the possibility he could suffer a similar fate to Akayev if protests continue. However, the parliamentary opposition lined up against him is itself riven by division.
    The opposition has suggested it will drop calls for Bakiyev to resign if the constitution is changed.
    "Yesterday the president declared that if the deputies reach and agreement, he would be ready to sign the new draft of the constitution. So yesterday we set up a consultative commission, which reached an agreement (on the new draft of the constitution), but so far the president has not signed," opposition legislator Kanybek Imanaliyev told reporters outside parliament.
    The compromise deal, hammered out by opposition and pro-government legislators on Tuesday, would remove the president's right to dissolve parliament, and give parliament the power to appoint the prime minister and cabinet.
    Bakiyev has not commented on the proposals but if two-thirds of the chamber approve the new constitution, he will have to accept it under law.
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