Reception of the successor

"If the matter is in your hands, I am calm." So allegedly said before the death of Mao Zedong to his successor Hua Gofen. The legend appeared after the departure of the "great helmsman" and was supposed to explain the reprisal against its closest associates, including the widow of Jiang Qing. In countries with authoritarian regimes, the heir to the deceased leader is not the one whom the hand of the former ruler indicated, but the one who won the struggle for power.

Islam Karimov passed away so unexpectedly for his environment that he did not manage to indicate any of the possible applicants - perhaps that is why the leadership of Uzbekistan hid the fact of the death of the head of state for so long from the public. In the Uzbek play, Vladimir Putin decided to play the role of Mao Zedong. Without arriving at the funeral, the president of Russia arrived in Samarkand a few days later. And after the Uzbek media was bypassed by the photograph of President Putin and Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who enthusiastically talking against the background of the grave of Islam Karimov, it became clear in whose hands the business and who was calm. It is noteworthy that President Putin did not pay attention to his formal colleague at all - the constitutional acting President of Uzbekistan Nigmatilla Yuldashev. However, he managed to unveil Karimov for only a few days. Almost immediately after the departure of Putin, Mirziyoyev gathered an extraordinary meeting of the Uzbekistan parliament, at which he was declared the acting president.

This decision, of course, has nothing to do with the Uzbek constitution. It says black and white there that in case of the advance of the president, his duties are performed by the chairman of the Senate, and then the election of the head of state is held in the country within three months. The parliament does not have any right to assign before this temporary head of state, so Mirziyoyev is the most ordinary usurper. However, his conditional predecessor Yuldashev was still lucky. After the death of Saparmurat Niyazov, his successor Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov generally sent a formal shift in Turkmenbashi to prison on charges of corruption - and in the Uzbek case, Yuldashev himself was one of the main actors of the actual public coup.

However, the question arises: where is he in a hurry? If Mirziyoev really felt confident, he could calmly finalize the prime minister to the presidential election and defeat them with the result that would resemble the best days of Islam Karimov. And Yuldashev would sign decrees, accept credentials and "heated the place". A rush with the announcement of Mirziyoyev acting as the president is rather an indicator of instability in the authorities. The instability is so serious and obvious that to give the design of the weight, Putin had to intervene, which had to show the Uzbeks with all his behavior in Samarkand: here is your new Karimov. He and listen to him.

But when it comes to power in such a country as Uzbekistan, it is not up to the wishes of Putin. When they say to you "if the case is in your hands - I am calm", this means that you have received power. But this is by no means a guarantee that you can hold this power.

Hua Gofen, by the way, did not hold.