Kyrgyzstan votes on referendum for constitution

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Polls opened in Kyrgyzstan for a referendum Sunday to choose a new constitution that the interim government hopes will legitimize its power until new parliamentary elections in October.

The Central Asian nation was on a high security alert for the vote, deploying almost 8,000 police officers and an equal number of defense volunteers to keep the peace.

Questions remain about how successfully it can be held just weeks after violence left hundreds of Uzbeks dead and forced up to 400,000 to flee.

Checkpoints have been set up throughout the capital, Bishkek, and in Osh and Jalal-Abad, two southern cities wracked by ethnic purges against minority Uzbeks earlier this month.

The vote — supported by the U.N., the U.S. and Russia — is seen as an important step on the road to democracy for the interim government, which came to power after former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown in a bloody uprising in April.

The proposed constitution — the seventh that the former Soviet republic has seen in its 19 years of independence — does little to address the causes of the violence that swept the south.

The document that has been touted by Kyrgyz officials as a transition from despotism to the region's first parliamentary democracy looks strikingly similar to the constitution drawn up by Bakiyev, who was ousted in a bloody revolution three months ago.

It makes mostly cosmetic changes to parliament, limits the role of any one party to around 55 percent of the seats, and gives lawmakers some flimsy new levers of control over the presidency.

But it does nothing to guarantee a greater role in politics for Uzbeks, who make up about 15 percent of the country's 5.5 million people but have long complained of being left out of the halls of power.

For the leaders of the April revolution, and particularly for interim President Roza Otunbayeva, the vote is an effort to prolong and legitimize their rule.

Otunbayeva's government proved incapable of quickly stopping the violence in the south and has done little to follow up on reports that security forces participated in the attacks on Uzbeks, who have been afraid to return to homes torched by mobs.

Her government has accused Bakiyev's followers of instigating the violence to stop the referendum. Bakiyev, in exile, has denied any links to the purges, but his nephew has been charged with helping organize the deadly rioting. His son Maxim has also been arrested in Britain.