Uzbek Leaders Tight-Lipped Ahead of Election

Uzbek president Islam Karimov has still not said a word about whether he will stand in the December election, but NBCentralAsia analysts say he is just biding his time. Although not technically eligible to stand again, he could amend the constitution or use existing loopholes to secure re-election.



September 21 marked the start of campaigning for a presidential election scheduled for December 23. Yet there is a marked lack of political activity. A media-watcher in the country said the election was not even mentioned in news bulletins on the main television channels in the course of one day, September 24.



Candidate registration will not begin until late October, but NBCentralAsia understands that after the election was announced on September 18, the heads of all five officially-registered (and pro-government) political parties were called into the presidential administration and urged to nominate candidates.



The Uzbek constitution makes it illegal for Karimov to stand in December’s election because he has already served his maximum two terms, but NBCentralAsia analysts say that the current media silence indicates he is waiting for the right moment to announce he is standing.



“No one is in any doubt that Karimov will nominate himself,” said NBCentralAsia analyst Bakhtiyor Isabek.



However, Karimov will first have to get round a constitutional barrier. He has been in power since 1989, when he was appointed first secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Uzbekistan. When he was elected president after independence in 1991, the constitution only allowed him to serve two five-year terms, but a referendum in 1995 extended his first term in office until 2000.



Two years later, the Uzbek constitution was changed so that all presidents would serve seven-year terms instead of five. A former member of the Uzbek parliament, who asked to remain anonymous, explained that this could be interpreted to mean that Karimov has only served one term so far under the new system, because his first seven year term began in 2000.



If this does not wash, a legal expert at the University for World Economics and Diplomacy in Tashkent explains that Karimov could claim a third term if he wins a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of parliament in favour of changing the constitution.



Alternatively, he could hold another referendum – the third since 1991 – to get his current term extended. But the legal expert ruled this out, since the constitution requires that the referendum and its subject should be announced six months in advance.



“Whichever way it goes, Karimov cannot legitimately be nominated to stand for another term,” said another lawyer. “But the realities of Uzbekistan are such that if Karimov wants to nominate himself without changing the constitution, no one will dare to object.”



A former regional official agrees that Karimov is going to stand. He doubts anyone else will stand – for a start, they need to gather 1.4 million signatures in their support. Time is short, and few potential voters are sufficiently courageous to put their names on such a list.



“People will be afraid to sign the application forms for fear that the National Security Service will get hold of the list, with the inevitable unpleasant consequences,” said the ex-official.



(NBCentralAsia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)