Protesters have been rallying in central Bishkek for seven days demanding that the new Constitution reducing presidential powers be adopted and early elections called.
"No political force will be able to coerce parliament into adopting the Constitution this way," Speaker Marat Sultanov said, adding that lawmakers were willing to discuss the bill in "a calm atmosphere."
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed the draft Constitution, the third in the past six months, April 10. A working group led by Prime Minister Almaz Atambayev, a former liberal opposition leader, drafted the document.
The radical opposition, led by former Prime Minister and former presidential ally Felix Kulov, has also drawn up its own variant, and will soon submit it to legislature.
Kulov, who came to power on the back of a violent uprising in 2005 together with the president, said some members of parliament were deliberately delaying consideration of the draft law, adding that pro-presidential deputies could also try to "bloc the election of Constitutional Court judges."
The Constitutional Court has been unable to make a quorum for the past six months. Under local law, parliament cannot start debating constitutional changes until the Constitutional Court reaches a conclusion.
In November, the power struggle in the impoverished republic ended up with a new Constitution that was signed under pressure form the liberal opposition movement For Reforms, led by the current premier at the time. The law curtailed presidential powers and almost turned the country into a parliamentary republic. But deputies passed a new Consitution December 30 that restored the president's authority after Bakiyev threatened to dissolve parliament.
