This is a translation of the analysis that Inga posted on Russian neweurasia. She explains in details who benefited from adopting new Kyrgyz Constitution.

New Constitution is adopted in Kyrgyzstan. This fact is cheered by everyone, including the people, the president and the parliament. Crowds of former protesters greeted new constitution with fireworks, the White House with relief, the parliament with a round of applause. Amidst the hassle no one really got what made Kyrgyz politics from 2 opposing sides to compromise so quickly over the controversial issue of adopting new Constitution.

According to one of the version explaining this speedy political compromise, opposition, rallying on the main square of Bishkek with no clear strategy or particular plan, realized at some point that loosing more time would be unacceptable and could lead to a failure of a whole endeavor. Thus, opposition leaders decided to act and press the president at least for some change so that to be able to show that artificially arranged stand off was not in vain.

Another version says that the president and his inner circle decided to show that people’s needs are not foreign to power holders. It is said that this political compromise was necessary for president Bakiev, loosing his credibility as well as popularity among the population of Kyrgyzstan. It was allegedly the only reason that made the president to agree with the speediest adoption of the main document of the country. As a matter of fact the volume containing 101 chapter was adopted in the parliament for 10 (!) minutes.

In any case, new Constitution will be triggering controversies for a long period. For now there is no consensus even among lawyers and legal workers. It turns out that the new Constitution of Kyrgyzstan suits just fine for defining it in broadest possible terms. Among the most popular comments: “The quick adoption of the Constitution can cause nothing but harm”, “The Constitution adopted overnight can lead to a new political crisis unfolding on the ground”. There are also opinions, though, that the check and balance system is ideally balanced in the new Constitution. Thus ,a well known lawyer Danyar Narynbaev commented on the new document:

“This Constitution is a great example of what can be called a collective compromise, since it serves both the president and the opposition. We hope that it will function accordingly. The only thing that is needed is that we work on perfecting the content of the document itself .”

This viewpoint is not supported by Azamat Kerimbaev, serving as an expert for the American Bar Association.

“ The fact of this speedy adoption of the new Constitution can hardly be appreciated. I seriously doubt the accuracy of the document that was literally amended over 2 nights under the strong political pressure. I’m sure it was mainly about political compromise so the legal quality of the document can be questioned in many aspects. This situation replicates the agreement that was signed more than a year ago between the president and the prime minister. Later this document was criticized on various occasions with lots of policy maker characterizing it as illegitimate. I think that the situation will repeat itself with the new Constitution. ”

In general the question who mostly benefited from adopting new Constitution is still open.

Benefits for the parliament:It is obvious that the dreams of the opposition came true: the parliament in the country gets more power than before. The bottom line here is that, according to all new amendments, the parliament is empowered to control the executive branch of power in the country.

Chapter 54 of the Constitution now has it that the parliament is to be “strengthened” by 15 additional MPs.
Out of 90 deputies, 45 are to be elected on the principle of party lists. The winning party will be in charge of appointing government members. Though the trick is that if there is no winning party, the president of the country will pick up the party in charge for selecting his cabinet.

Also, according to a number of experts, noone knows nowadays whether “missing” MP’s are to be elected right away. The head of the Institute for Constitutional Policy Nurlan Sadykov emphasized:

“According to the new Constitution we need to have the parliament comprised of 90 MPs. Only this number of parliament members can ensure legitimacy of the work of Jogorku Kenesh. On the other hand, in order to stage elections we need to amend our Electoral Code first. So there is lots of work to be done before we can live in accordance with the new constitution. ”

More details, more contradictions. As one of the opposition cheerleaders Melis Eshimkanov mentioned in this case : “We needed to compromise to achieve at least something. Many of our colleagues wanted certain guarantees in order to secure their terms in parliament. Thus we agreed that every MP, the president and the prime minister should stay in power till 2010. ”
More about contradictions. There is nothing mentioned in the constitution about the immunity of MPs as well as the president. May be more compromises were implied in this gray area of legislation. Not that we know about anything for sure but some guesses still exist.

Benefits for the president:
Surprisingly enough, president Bakiev lost almost nothing. He will still be in charge of appointing local judges, heads of the National Bank and general prosecutors. His other functions are not much different from everything he was assigned for in the previous Constitution. Moreover he is literally freed from the moral responsibility for all misdeeds of the government since the burden of appointing its members has now become a priority of the parliament. The only thing that the president has really lost is his control over financial and military structures.

Benefits for the population:.
They are not visible at all. Except for all speculations about the victory of democracy ordinary people will hardly feel any change after the constitution got amended. The only comforting thing is probably retaining of the status of the Russian language (which remains an official language of Kyrgyzstan). The other ray of hope is dual citizenship that can now be granted to any Kyrgyz citizen willing to become a citizen of another country as well.
In general, according to Azamat Kerimbaev (American Bar Association) :

“The Constitution that was adopted several days ago is still very raw. It satisfies ambitions of several key policy makers, several MPs, the President, the Prime Minister and the State Secretary. That seems to be it for now. ”