Russia worried as Kyrgyzstan backs new constitution

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NORWAY : Rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik , who killed 77 people in twin attacks in Norway last year, confers with his lawyer Geir Lippestad, at the opening of his trial in Oslo district courtroom Monday. — AFP

BISHKEK, June 28 (AFP): Kyrgyz voters massively backed a constitution establishing a parliamentary democracy, results said Monday, but Russia warned the changes risked fanning instability after deadly ethnic clashes.
Over 90 per cent of voters in Sunday's referendum backed the new constitution that would set up ex-Soviet Central Asia's first parliamentary democracy, said preliminary results based on 96 per cent of the electoral districts.
The vote was hailed as a 'victory' by the new Kyrgyz government led by interim leader Roza Otunbayeva which came to power last April amid bloody riots that ousted former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
"The people have put a full stop on the epoch of the authoritarian, family rule of the previous regimes," Otunbayeva said in a statement released by her office.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev -- who has stung Bishkek by warning over the last weeks the country risked breaking-up -- was far less enthusiastic about the outcome.
Meanwhile, AP adds: International observers Monday praised Kyrgyzstan's constitutional referendum, saying the vote was conducted in a transparent and remarkably peaceful manner despite a lingering climate of fear after ethnic purges.
While the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe recognised some shortcomings in the vote, its approval was the final stamp of legitimacy for the interim authorities who came to power after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in mass protests in April.
More than two thirds of the 2.7 million eligible to vote in this Central Asian nation overwhelmingly approved a new constitution that reduces presidential power and hands more authority to parliament. The referendum was seen as a barometer of national trust in interim President Roza Otunbayeva's rule.
Many feared the referendum would reignite the kind of violence that saw hundreds of ethnic Uzbeks killed and many thousands more displaced earlier this month when majority Kyrgyz rampaged through minority Uzbek neighborhoods in the country's south.
"Considering the extremely difficult environment in which the referendum took place - only weeks after the violence in Osh and Jalal-Abad - the provisional government and other authorities should be commended for organizing a remarkably peaceful process," Boris Frlec, head of the OSCE observation mission, said in a statement.
Shortcomings the group noted included a lack of safeguards against multiple voting, with voters not always checked for ink, and polling panel at times being unaware of procedures.