Voters in Kyrgyzstan overwhelmingly backed a new Constitution in a controversial referendum slammed by Russia as risking a resurgence of unrest after deadly ethnic clashes, according to results on Monday.
More than 90 per cent of voters in Sunday’s referendum backed the new charter that would set up ex-Soviet Central Asia’s first parliamentary democracy, the preliminary results based on more than 99 per cent of the electoral districts showed.
But Opposition leaders said the figures were impossibly high given the fallout from the ethnic violence that left hundreds of people dead. Just 8.0 per cent voted against, on the back of a mass turnout of 69.5 per cent. The vote was hailed as a “victory” by the new Kyrgyz government of 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,” Ms Otunbayeva said in a statement released by her office.
The new Constitution will slash the powers of the President and set the stage for parliamentary elections that authorities have scheduled for early September to bring in a permanent government.
Ms Otunbayeva will serve as President until 2011 elections.
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Nepal budget session to start July 5
Kathmandu, June 28: After keeping the house in abeyance for over a month for fear of obstruction by the Opposition Maoist party,
Nepal’s embattled government Monday announced that the new budget session of Parliament would convene from July 5. Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who refuses to resign despite a year-long battle by the Maoists to make him quit, made the announcement after meeting the President Ram Baran Yadav on Monday. Both the President, who is Nepal’s head of state, and the chairman of Parliament Subhash Nembang have been expressing growing concern at the coalition government’s inability to start the budget session, which could plunge the state into a dire financial crisis like 2009. Mr Nembang told the media he had advised Nepal to convene the budget session nearly three weeks ago. —IANS