UZBEKS CHOOSE STABILITY

The regular presidential election held on 29 March in Uzbekistan went off without surprises. As had been expected, the country's incumbent President Islam Karimov won convincingly for the fourth time running.  

Few people had doubts that the Uzbek leader would be re-elected for a new term. According to local legislation, a presidential election will be valid even if only one-third of the voters come to the polls. Taking this into account, the polling stations could have closed only four hours after their opening. The voter turnout exceeded 90 per cent. 

According to Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov, the head of the Central Electoral Commission of Uzbekistan, 90.39 per cent of the voters who came to the polls cast their ballots for I.Karimov. Candidate Akmal Saidov of the Democratic Party of Uzbekistan came second supported by 3.08 per cent of the vote. Khatamjan Ketmanov, the leader of the People's Democratic Party, was third with 2.92 per cent. But this statistics may be of some interest only to the candidates themselves. Throughout the years of independence, the Uzbeks have recognized I.Karimov as the uncontested leader of Uzbekistan: the two previous elections demonstrated just as high figures of Karimov's popularity - 91.9 per cent in 2000 and 90.76 per cent seven years later. 

I.Karimov's candidature suits Uzbekistan's next-door neighbours and its partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), first and foremost Russia. On behalf of the observation mission from CIS states, Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergey Lebedev has announced that the presidential election in Uzbekistan complied with generally accepted democratic standards.

Seventy-seven year old I.Karimov is the oldest of all heads of state throughout the former Soviet Union. His only rival in terms of total time in power is Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev who ran his country before it gained independence. The name of I.Karimov personifies stability in his homeland. With Karimov, the country always chooses stability, people say in Uzbekistan. 

The Uzbek people's opinion is shared by Dmitriy Aleksandrov, a Russian expert on Central Asian states. "It seems to me that, in this case, at issue is stability in the social and economic development of Uzbekistan. I think this movement will be as consistent as it has been during all the recent years. I expect no drastic changes to take place. I understand that, indeed, the Uzbek leadership's stake is on such stable development without abrupt jerks," Aleksandrov said.  

Nonetheless, the issue of stability may come up before the country very soon. As a rule, the issue of successor is important in any Oriental state run by an aged leader. There is no clarity yet in Uzbekistan on this matter. In all likelihood, the president of the republic will have to decide within his new presidential term on the person to whom he will hand over the reins of power. In doing this, he will have to take into account the fact that the new leader will need support from influential clans (experts lay special emphasis on the Tashkent, Samarkand-Bukhara and Fergana clans). Therefore, the candidate will not only have to have a substantial service record and connections but also the support of the leading figure of Uzbek politics, Karimov. The depth of the problem consists in that a change of power in a country like Uzbekistan is fraught with the possibility of internal political struggle growing into a bloody confrontation between its groupings accustomed to solving political problems with arms in hand. Thus, for instance, the terrorist group of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) has been a serious challenge to internal political stability in the state for many years. Uzbek law-enforcers got a new headache when the IMU leadership announced joining the combatants of the Islamic State who are terrorizing almost the entire Middle East. The Uzbek authorities have information that the IMU has now stepped up efforts to recruit and train militants in the cross-border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan's special services are increasing antiterrorist activities in this connection. In this context, let us recall the stir in the country caused by the Islamic State's flag hung by someone from a bridge in Yunusabad District in Tashkent back in August 2014. The information on Uzbek extremists joining the terrorists operating in Syria and Iraq was reported by Radio Azattyk (Radio Liberty) on 3 October citing a statement by IMU leader Usman Ghazi made on 26 September. During that very period, the media announced that the Islamic State had even elected its so-called "emir" for Uzbekistan, a country of which the religious extremists horrifying the entire world have special expectations in hatching their plans for an Islamic Caliphate spreading across Central Asia. By the way, the threat should be kept in mind of religious extremism posed to Uzbekistan from Afghanistan where Islamic State terrorists are getting ever stronger. For your information: some three million Uzbeks live in Northern Afghanistan. 

As can be seen, the threat of extremism is the concern of not only his successor but also the new old president of Uzbekistan. Throughout Karimov's tenure up to this moment, the country has succeeded in suppressing extremists' attempts to rear their heads inside the country but what will take place after the patriarch's resignation?  

Moreover, this problem is being aggravated by a problem inside the president's family related to the political ambitions of Karimov's daughter Gulnara who is currently under house arrest for her attempt to go against her father. 

The incumbent president is faced with tough problem in the field of foreign affairs. After some wavering between the West and Russia observed in previous years, the leadership of Uzbekistan is trying today to build even relations both with the West and Russia as well as China which, by the way, is demonstrating growing ambitions towards the Central Asian region. However, the return of the relations between Moscow and the West to the Cold War period has led to exacerbation in the standoff between the sides in the post-Soviet space in general and in Central Asia in particular. The situation may develop in such a way that Uzbekistan may have to give up its policy of balance and decide unambiguously with whom to side. This kind of choice is always difficult and may put the country in a zugzwang, a situation well-known to chess players where any move is fraught with losses.    

In any event, the incumbent government, under the guidance of the president, has so far been successfully coping with all domestic and foreign political challenges. I.Karimov's convincing win in the election has shown that the Uzbek people are interested in keeping stability in the domestic political system and a balanced foreign policy. However, the growing threats from the inside and outside the borders of Uzbekistan are tasking the government with ensuring coherence of this policy to provide a safe future for the nation.