{"id":40013,"date":"2021-04-12T12:11:34","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T10:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/?p=40013"},"modified":"2021-04-12T15:02:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T13:02:31","slug":"kyrgyzstan-voters-approve-new-constitution-in-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/kyrgyzstan\/kyrgyzstan-voters-approve-new-constitution-in-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyrgyzstan: voters approve new constitution in referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new Kyrgyz constitution, proposed by referendum, was approved by 79.3% of voters according to preliminary results. Turnout, however, was low: just over 35%.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voters in Kyrgyzstan have approved a new constitution. According to preliminary results of the 11 April constitutional referendum, 79.3% voted for the change, the Kyrgyz Central Electoral Commission (CEC) announced<\/a>. With this vote and the new constitution, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov<\/a> sees his role gain sweeping new powers. <\/p>\n\n\n

Want more Central Asia in your inbox? Subscribe to our newsletter here.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote, which took place at the same time as local elections, had very low turnout. Also according to the CEC, 35.9% of citizens of voting age participated in the poll, slightly above the threshold of 30% legally required to validate the referendum. This proportion is similar to that of the presidential election<\/a> on 10 January, which Sadyr Japarov won with nearly 80% of the vote but a 39% turnout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A victory for the “Khanstitution”<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Despite everything, the vote remains a new milestone for Kyrgyzstan’s new strongman. Sadyr Japarov proposed this constitutional change in mid-November 2020, shortly after a rise to power<\/a> that saw him go from convict to prime minister and interim president. Critics in and out of the country say the new constitution will make Kyrgyzstan an authoritarian state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:<\/strong> Rise and fall\u2026 and rise: the career of Kyrgyzstan\u2019s Sadyr Japarov<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These critics have sometimes referred to this new constitution as a “Khanstitutsiya” (that is, a “Khan<\/a> constitution”). Indeed, it greatly expands the president’s power without providing institutional counterbalance. As described by the Kyrgyz media outlet Kloop<\/a>, the new constitution makes the president the sole head of the executive, reducing the prime minister to a subordinate role. The president can in addition now propose laws directly to parliament. According to the Venice Commission’s analysis<\/a> at the end of March, this \u201ccreates a real risk of undermining the separation of powers and the rule of law in the Kyrgyz Republic”<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Super-presidential” government<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Correspondingly, the Kyrgyz press agency AKIPress describes the new constitution<\/a> as a “legally enshrined super-presidential form of government “<\/em> and points out that Kyrgyzstan was de facto under such a system of government already under the presidents Askar Akaev<\/a> (1990-2005), Kurmanbek Bakiev<\/a> (2005-2010) and the final years of Almazbek Atambaev<\/a>‘s presidency (2011-2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To put it simply, the governments of Kyrgyzstan have already tried all possible variants of the political system,” <\/em>AKIPress adds. “But the problem that we do not want to recognise does not lie in the constitution or in the lack of ideal laws…”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Japarov describes the constitutional referendum as a solution to political instability in Kyrgyzstan. \u201cKyrgyzstan has been looking for its way for thirty years, a time during which there have been waves of unrest. All of this is a consequence of the incoherence of our intentions and aspirations,\u201d <\/em>he declared<\/a> on the day of the referendum. “Our future path is closely linked to your decision today.”<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Updated at 11.50am on 12 April 2021<\/strong>: added final section<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etienne Combier<\/strong>
Editor-in-chief of Novastan France<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florian Coppenrath<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, Telegram<\/a>, Linkedin<\/a> or Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new Kyrgyz constitution, proposed by referendum, was approved by 79.3% of voters according to preliminary results. Turnout, however, was low: just over 35%. Voters in Kyrgyzstan have approved a new constitution. According to preliminary results of the 11 April constitutional referendum, 79.3% voted for the change, the Kyrgyz Central Electoral Commission (CEC) announced. With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":40014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[811,4005,2578,3984],"coauthors":[81,88],"class_list":["post-40013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kyrgyzstan","tag-constitution","tag-constitutional-referendum","tag-kyrgyzstan","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43549,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40013\/revisions\/43549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40013"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=40013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}