Kyrgyz leader meets with vote observers

BISHKEK — Kyrgyz interim President Roza Otunbayeva was to meet with representatives of foreign observer missions Tuesday after voters overwhelmingly backed a new constitution in a controversial referendum.More than 90 percent of voters in Sunday's poll backed the new charter that would set up ex-Soviet Central Asia's first parliamentary democracy, according to preliminary results based on more than 99 percent of electoral districts.But opposition leaders said the figures were impossibly high given the fallout from this month's ethnic violence that left hundreds of people dead.Just 8.0 percent voted against, on the back of a mass turnout of 69.5 percent, according to the results.The vote was hailed as a "victory" by the new government of interim leader Otunbayeva, which came to power in April amid 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.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.Otunbayeva will serve as president until the 2011 election.Several observers had warned that the poll was recklessly premature, coming just two weeks after fighting between majority Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks killed hundreds of people in the country's south."I highly doubt that the central election commission's data reflects the real picture," said Adakhan Madumarov, leader of the Batun Kyrgyzstan party and loyal to Bakiyev.Liberal former interior minister and chief of the Ata-Zhurt opposition party Omurbek Suvanaliyev called the figures "fantastical" and accused the interim government of "massive falsification" in the registration of voters.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev -- who has stung Bishkek by warning over the past weeks the country risked breaking-up -- was also less than enthusiastic about the outcome."I have a hard time imagi

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