Uzbek Leader Uses Reforms to Secure Future

Thursday, 16 December, 2010

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Inga Sikorskaya

Senior Editor, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan

Changes to the Uzbek constitution giving parliament more powers and establishing new procedures for the presidential succession are mainly about reinforcing the position of current leader Islam Karimov, analysts say.

On the face of it, the changes look like a tentative step towards democracy. Outlining the reforms in a speech to parliament on November 12, President Karimov, said the political party or bloc that won the most seats in an election would get to nominate a prime minister, a right currently reserved for the president himself. Parliament would also have powers to seek the dismissal of the prime minister. The government, meanwhile, would take over full responsibility for areas like the economy and social affairs that now fall within the president’s remit.

The purpose of these changes, Karimov said, was to create a more balanced distribution of power among presidency, legislature and executive. Granting parliament more authority marked “a new stage in reforming and democratising the country”, he said.

Another key change affects the arrangements for replacing the head of state in the event he dies or becomes incapable of continuing in the post. At the moment, members of parliament are supposed to pick one of their number to fill in on an acting basis while a presidential election is organised. Now the acting position will automatically go to the chairman of the Senate, the upper house of Uzbekistan’s parliament, with an election due within three months.

The president’s true intentions are opaque. Some analysts interviewed by IWPR believe he is laying the way for the day he leaves office – though none see this as an imminent possibility. Others suspect that members of Karimov’s entourage have pressed for the changes in order to guarantee their own political survival by ensuring any transition of power goes smoothly. Finally, there are those who believe the reforms are no more than the periodic window-dressing that Karimov has engaged in for more than two decades.

A member of parliament in Uzbekistan who asked to remain anonymous argued that the political elite as a whole is considering the options for a time when Karimov is no longer in charge. The new arrangements were really intended for the long term.

Several years ago, he recalled, legislation was passed to give former president a seat in the Senate and in the Constitutional Court for life. At the time, this was misread as a sign Karimov was on the point of retiring.

“If it had been conceived as a plan for a smooth departure, he should have been gone by now, but many years have passed since then and we still have the same president,” the legislator said.

Instead, he said, Karimov was manoeuvring to ensure he wielded political power even if he stepped down as president.

“He will be a senator and dominate parliament as elder statesman. He will recommend a candidate [for prime minister], and will say when it is time for a vote of no confidence,” he said.

A Tashkent-based political analyst, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the reform might have emanated from Karimov himself, as the realisation dawned that if he chose to step down, the presence of a massively powerful successor would not be to his own advantage.

“Maybe he’s come to see that when the time comes, this personalised system could become unstable,” he said.

Farhod Tolipov, a political analyst in Tashkent, uses a similar example to draw a different conclusion – that nothing would actually change. In an interview  he gave to IWPR, he said cited a previous presidential initiative allowing parties to form a parliamentary opposition. Despite this, he said, “we haven’t seen any faction emerge as an independent opposition”.

Dosym Satpaev, a political analyst in Kazakstan, agreed that what was being presented as reform was really just a mechanism for shaping the future the way the president wanted to see it.

“Karimov is very acutely aware of the need to start thinking now about a mechanism that will secure continuity and preserve the political system he has created,” he said. “This has a lot to do with security – first, for his family; second, for the property that belongs to him, to his family and to members of his immediate circle,” Satpaev said.

Karimov’s strategy, he said, was to dilute the powers of the next president while strengthening those of a parliament dominated by a party he would still control.

Tashpulat Yoldashev, a political commentator now living outside Uzbekistan, sees the reform as a divide-and-rule tactic designed to satisfy a range of political elite groups while preventing any one of them emerging ahead of the pack.

“Karimov has always played on rivalries and confrontation among clans, taking it out on the less trustworthy ones, punishing and destroying them with the help of those who happen are close to him at any given time,” he said.

Seen in this light, Ilgizar Sobirov, a little-known figure despite heading the Senate since 2006, looks very much like a transitional figure. His connections are with a political grouping or “clan” that comes from Khorezm in the northwest of Uzbekistan, and is much less influential than the Tashkent, Fergana and Samarkand groups.

Sobirov would step in as interim head of state if Karimov left the stage, but lacked the backing to make a bid to take over on a permanent basis, Yoldashev said. Identifying Sobirov could thus be a way of checkmating Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoev, who may have grown too powerful for Karimov’s liking.

“Mirziyoev, who has skilfully won the boss’s trust and copies his style of leadership and behaviour, has not put his political ambitions on public show as yet. But he has been systematically strengthening his position in the state apparatus and in the economic sector, and he’s been quietly building up his team, which probably hasn’t gone unnoticed by his rivals, who will have reported this to the leader,” Yoldashev said.

Rovshan Ibrahimov, head of the international relations department at Baku University in Azerbaijan, said any talk of Karimov stepping down was premature.

“This is a period of transition, of preparing the ground,” he said. “All the leaders in the post-Soviet area are doing the same thing.”

There is little doubt that Uzbek parliament will approve the reforms President Karimov has proposed.

Yoldashev said that Karimov was so strong that no rival would dare challenge him as long as he lives.

“Karimov is unpredictable. Depending on what he wants, he will reshuffle his staff repeatedly, change the rules of the game and dictate new terms whenever he wants to,” the analyst said. “Until he dies, no real change can be expected in the country’s political life, in the functioning of parliament, or in the appointment and dismissal of prime ministers.”

Inga Sikorskaya is IWPR’s chief editor for Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.