Kyrgyzstan – Constitutional situation clarified

The good news is that the draft of the new Kyrgyzstan constitution is now available. The bad news is that it is only available in, I think, Kyrgyz. The text is available here.

My Kyrgyz not being up to very much, I have had to rely on other sources. One useful report was issued by Interfax. The bottom line is that the constitution is almost certainly semi-presidential.

Here are some key points from the article (rephrased by me, if necessary):

“… the parliament will approve the composition of the government, a power which was formerly held by the president.

The parliamentarians will pass motions of confidence and no confidence in the government and approve all state programs. The government will be accountable only to the parliament.

The president will approve a candidate for prime minister, while the parliament will approve the government structure and composition.

The prime minister will be nominated by the victorious party or parliament factions if the victorious party does not gain the appropriate number of parliament seats.”

In the report, there is no mention of a directly elected president, but my understanding is that the president will remain directly elected. If so, and if this version is approved, then Kyrgyzstan will have a premier-presidential version of semi-presidentialism.

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