Kyrgyzstan votes on constitution and interim president
A referendum on the constitution of Kyrgyzstan is underway, as people there head to the polls to choose whether to turn the country into a parliamentary republic.
If implemented, the reforms will give the president less authority and the parliament more power.
The interim government, which came into being in April after former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted following a bloody uprising, is pinning its hopes on the referendum to earn legitimacy in the country and in the international community.
The citizens have to vote for or against the draft constitution proposed by the interim government. In addition, the public will have to say whether they support its head, Roza Otunbayeva, as interim president until the end of the transition period on December 31, 2011.
“The people today are voting for stability in Kyrgyzstan, for legitimate power. A lot is being said about the country being divided, that the country is on the brink of disaster, but today at the referendum people want to prove that the country is united,” Roza Otunbayeva said on Sunday.
The turnout has been around 30% across the country, which is a high figure taking into account the level of distrust toward the interim government, especially in the south. When asked about why they have come to the polling station, most people make no mention of the Constitution. It turns out that very few know the difference between a parliamentary and presidential republic, and instead locals think it is a vote for peace and stability.
“I think it raises questions about the extent to which this can really be said to be a sort of an all-national, as it claims to be, legitimizing referendum,” says Professor Madeleine Reeves from Manchester University.
“I think the provisional government faced a very hard choice in terms of conducting this referendum or not. The motivating reason for them was a fear that not to hold a referendum would be even more destabilizing,” she added.
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