Three and Karimov

Uzbekistan elects a president

This coming Sunday, December 23, a president will be elected in Uzbekistan . The upcoming vote, like other presidential elections in recent years in Eurasia - in Russia and Central Asia, does not contain any intrigue. The name of the winner of the Uzbek elections is known: Islam Abduganievich Karimov. The current president of Uzbekistan was nominated as a presidential candidate by the Movement of Entrepreneurs and Business People - the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (LDPU). The difficult but honorable role of Mr. Karimov's political rivals has been entrusted to three worthy citizens of the country - two men and one woman.

In terms of gender, the elections in Uzbekistan are unprecedented for the entire CIS region - never before has a woman applied for the post of head of state in any of the 12 countries of the Commonwealth. Surprisingly, official Tashkent has so far made no effort to highlight this achievement of the country on the path of democratic development. The name of the brave woman who challenged the recognized leader of Uzbekistan is Diloram Tashmukhamedova. The 45-year-old mother of four children, a former private entrepreneur, candidate of medical sciences, holder of the Order of “Dustlik” (“Friendship”), vice-speaker of the lower house of the Oliy Majlis (parliament) made her career in the Social Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (SDPU), which and nominated her as a presidential candidate.

The candidate from the country's oldest party, the People's Democratic Party (the successor to the Soviet Communist Party of Uzbekistan), is the same age as Ms. Tashmukhamedova, Asliddin Rustamov. A former teacher, Komsomol worker, who managed to be a banker, Mr. Rustamov has a lot in common with his rival from the SDPU - he also has four children, he is also the speaker of the same house of parliament and was also awarded the Dustlik Order.

The third rival of Islam Karimov is a non-partisan, independent, but apparently trustworthy person - Akmal Saidov. The 49-year-old doctor of legal sciences had the honor of being nominated as a presidential candidate by an initiative group of citizens. The choice of citizens was made quite responsibly. Mr. Saidov held many important positions - from the chairman of the Committee of Youth Organizations in Soviet times and the director of the Institute of World Problems under the President of Uzbekistan to the Ambassador of Uzbekistan to France and part-time at UNESCO. For 11 years now, Akmal Saidov has been working as director of the National Center for Human Rights. Obviously, the nomination of such an experienced government human rights activist allowed the Central Election Commission of Uzbekistan to refuse to increase the list of official presidential candidates at the expense of those informal Uzbek human rights activists who declared themselves self-nominated for this post several months ago.

As the state Uzbek news agency Jahon reports, “the election campaign in Uzbekistan is taking place in a smooth, calm and business-like manner.” Apparently, in order not to stir up outrage in this regime, according to the independent news agency Fergana.ru, Uzbek authorities are giving visas to foreign journalists rushing to report on the elections only for a week's stay in the country, from December 20 to 27. Private hotels in Samarkand, as Fergana.ru claims, received verbal instructions to suspend their activities until January 5, 2008 and not to receive guests during the elections or to send them to hotels that are state property. Yesterday, one of the pro-government Internet sites of Uzbekistan, Press-uz.info, called Fergana.ru news agency, BBC radio stations and Ozodlik (the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty) “information hangers-on for such international organizations as Civic Assistance.” and the Memorial Human Rights Center.

Observer missions from the CIS and several observers from the OSCE Office for Democratization and Human Rights (ODIHR) are already operating in Uzbekistan. True, ODIHR observers did not receive a mandate from their headquarters to prepare a report and make assessments of the Uzbek elections, since they are taking place in conditions of “lack of competition.” Meanwhile, the Uzbek official news agency Zhakhon managed to find in Poland an activist of the Self-Defense party, Piotr Kozlovsky, who assessed the presence of OSCE observers as evidence of “a high level of development of democracy in Uzbekistan.”

And yet there is intrigue: what will the voter turnout be? And by what score will Mr. Karimov win another convincing victory? There are different opinions on this matter. The estimates according to which Islam Karimov will receive no less than 91.9% of the votes with a turnout of more than 95.9% of voters look very convincing. With such indicators, he won the previous elections in 2000. Experience shows that the popularity of any ruler in Central Asia, like the quality of a good wine, can only grow over time, but not fall.

Arkady DUBNOV