The functioning of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the CIS (IA CIS) in post-Soviet countries will in 2010 be celebrating its 18th anniversary. Although this organization is often left out of the analysis on the transformation of regimes or state institutions in the CIS, it serves as a key channel through which the values of adaptive parliamentarism and techniques of political control are being spread. BACKGROUND: Established in 1992, the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the CIS is one of the main institutions of the CIS. In contrast to other CIS institutions (the Council of the heads of states, the Council of the Heads of Governments), the Assembly has a unique right to approve international agreements in the name of member states (this right has not been confirmed by the Azerbaijani parliament). The specific function of the IA CIS in contrast to many other Inter-parliamentary organizations of the world (such as the OSCE/PA or PACE) is its right to pass model legislature, on the base of which the member states are recommended to establish national legislature. During its 18 years, the Assembly has passed 250 model laws, which encompass almost every aspect from issues of defense and security to the bases of library crafting. These laws are initiated and passed by deputies representing member states. After their approval during Assembly sessions, deputies lobby model laws prepared in St. Petersburg, the seat of the Assembly, in national parliaments. The CIS institutions are generally dominated by Russia and the IA CIS is no exception. Russia acts as a veto wielder, who establishes the international agenda and vectors of development. Although in order to preserve this right, Russia is interested in providing minimal overall benefit from these institutions for participating states. The main collective benefit of this institution for the political regimes of the CIS is the legitimacy of elections provided by IA CIS observers. The 2009 presidential elections in the Kyrgyz Republic again provoked discussions about their legitimacy, conduct and results, and the widespread use of administrative resources. The observer missions from OSCE/ODIHR and IA CIS diverged significantly in their reporting and assessments of the results, which has almost become a tradition. Before the 2002 adoption of the Convention on Democratic Elections as a post-Soviet mechanism for monitoring and assessing elections for the seven signatories of the Convention, the OSCE procedures served as a basic marker. As Vladimir Churov, the Head of the Central Election Committee of the Russian Federation and deputy head of the Russian Duma committee on the CIS, stated in one of his speeches, the success of the CIS standards in monitoring and assessing elections is based on the fact that the mission of CIS observers “takes into account local and national peculiarities and norms in a broader context, and acts in respect of the principle of sovereign democracy”. This is obviously in sharp contrast to the approaches of the OSCE. The main attraction of cooperation within the IA CIS for President Bakiev’s administration, as well as for other political regimes of CIS, is the right of state institutions holding elections to apply the IA’s recommendations. Hence, the assessment of the observer mission does not differ from the position of state authorities, granting the approval of held elections in the international parliamentary institution. IMPLICATIONS: After the Tulip Revolution in 2005, legitimization of Kyrgyzstan’s elections became a key issue in providing internal stability. In 2008, the IA CIS opened its first International Institute for monitoring the development of democracy and parliamentarism in Bishkek. A corresponding body was later opened in Baku. The creation of such regional structures of the IA CIS is aimed at forming a monitoring network for political processes in the region of Central Asia and Caucasus. These structures are actively involved in the activities of reforming national electoral legislature. Central to the activities of the Bishkek office is education and involvement in adjusting the national program for increasing awareness of the legal framework on the part of citizens, election organizers, local observers, representatives of political parties and the mass media. However, the education component of the IA CIS Bishkek office has not had the widespread impact of similar projects held under OSCE or civil society institutions. Here, a lack of trust serves as a key obstacle to cooperation between the CIS intergovernmental structures and civil society structures financed mainly by western states. The impact of the IA CIS on the development of parliamentarism in Kyrgyzstan is also connected to the type of socialization, which it contributes to. Joint sessions of the deputies in Tavricheski Hall, in which the first Duma of the Russian Empire also held sessions, symbolically emphasizes the status of Russian parliamentarism as a model containing the ‘right mixture’ of a strong president and an adaptive parliament. Since the dissolution of the USSR, Russia has in many parameters lost its leadership position as a model of development for other CIS states, although an inclination to its techniques of political control remains popular among the CIS regimes. The cooperation between ‘authority parties’ has been emphasized through a signed agreement between Yedinaya Rossiya and Ak Zhol on information sharing and launching joint education activities for parliamentarians. But the attitude towards the IA CIS in Kyrgyzstan is ambiguous. In situations where the inter-parliamentary body is needed for supporting the ruling regime during elections, the IA CIS becomes a main partner. However, the fact that the IA CIS is also considered an institution of Russian dominance, also significantly reduces its effectiveness as multilateral organization. Despite the fact that the degree of parliamentary control exercised by the IA CIS is quite low, it retains a certain influence in terms of soft power. It is clear that the institution of the IA CIS is a symbolic domain, the essence of which lies in the formation and confirmation of adaptive parliamentary values under authoritarian regimes. The IA CIS is not a mechanism for overcoming democratic values and procedures, it is rather a channel for strengthening ‘sovereign’ interpretations of democracy, debates about which remain vital in the post-Soviet domain. CONCLUSIONS: The IA CIS is just one example of how the norms of adaptive parliamentarism are defended, as in the majority of CIS states, authoritarian governments imitate this system of elections. The main function of the IA CIS is the coordination of member states in assessing electoral processes. This has determined the image of the IA CIS as a structure heavily dependent on authoritarian processes and unable to criticize the actions of executive power. The activities of the IA CIS demonstrates that politicians in Kyrgyzstan still hold certain expectations (‘the heritage of the past’) from the activities of Russia and the institutions of its dominance to support and help in solving the problems of security and sustainability of its regime. It should be emphasized that these expectations have their own limitations, due to the fact that they are oriented to past, not the future. However, it is clear that the impact of the IA CIS in terms of soft power in Kyrgyzstan and other post-Soviet states has a long-term potential to conserve existing behavior in the structures of power in CIS states. AUTHOR’S BIO: Asel Murzakulova is a Senior Lecturer at the Oriental Studies and International Relations Department of the Bishkek Humanities University, Kyrgyzstan.