Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev kept parliament waiting on Wednesday while he reviewed a new compromise constitution intended to defuse popular protests by significantly cutting his powers.
Bakiyev's supporters and opponents agreed final details of the deal on Wednesday, while demonstrators from both sides kept up street protests, and hoped to put it to a vote the same day. But as night fell, Bakiyev was still poring over the document.
"It is a cat-and-mouse game," opposition lawmaker Bolot Sherniyazov told Reuters in parliament, where deputies waited in suspense to receive the draft back from the president.
"Our nerves are about to blow up. We have agreed everything, what else does he need?" said Sherniyazov. The delay fed suspicions among the roughly 2,000 opposition demonstrators gathered in a square in central Bishkek for a seventh consecutive day of protests.
They are demanding Bakiyev resign for backtracking on democratic reform promises he made when he came to power last year. "Bakiyev out!" they shouted, waving balloons and opposition red and blue flags.
Lines of Interior Ministry soldiers stood between opposition supporters and about 300 pro-Bakiyev demonstrators standing a few hundred metres (yards) away outside the parliament building. State Secretary Adakhan Madumarov tried to calm opposition fears, saying Bakiyev was not planning any last-minute changes. "You can count on all problems disappearing today," he told a news briefing. "You know how complex legislative initiatives can be, and how every comma needs to be checked."
Violence erupted for the first time on Tuesday when riot police fired tear gas to break up scuffles between opposition and pro-government demonstrators.
Russia and the United States both have military airbases in Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous ex-Soviet state. Though it has few energy resources of its own, Kyrgyzstan is part of a Central Asia region rich in oil, gas and uranium where Beijing, Moscow and Washington are all jostling for influence.
Bakiyev was elected president last year after his predecessor, Askar Akayev, fled following violent protests against a flawed parliamentary election.
But his control of the country has been fragile from the outset, raising the possibility he could suffer a similar fate to Akayev if protests continue. However, the parliamentary opposition lined up against him is itself riven by division.
In Osh, Bakiyev's power base and Kyrgyzstan's second city, about 500 km (310 miles) south of Bishkek, state radio reported that around 6,000 people had rallied in support of him. The opposition says the new constitution is a reasonable compromise that should end the political stand-off.
"The members of this parliament have shown the political will to come to a consensus for the sake of peace in the country," opposition legislator Kanybek Imanaliyev told the chamber.
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