President's Critics Challenge his Legitimacy

Even though the presidential election in Uzbekistan will not take place until December, President Islam Karimov’s opponents are already nominating their candidates. NBCentralAsia observers say they stand little chance of being elected and the nominations are really a desperate attempt to attract public attention to uncertainty over the election.



On March 25, the Alliance of Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan announced that Abdullo Tojiboy Oghli, a 57-year-old human rights activist from Tashkent, as their candidate for the election.



In early January, Jahongir Shosalimov, another human rights activist from Tashkent, announced his intention to stand, and the opposition Erk party said it planned to put its leader Muhammad Salih forward. Salih officially ran for president in 1991, and was beaten by Islam Karimov won. Two attempts to nominate him after he emigrated to Turkey in 1993 came to nothing.



Both Tojiboy Oghli and Shosalimov have become well-known for questioning Karimov’s right to continue as president after his term expired in January.



Karimov has been president of Uzbekistan continuously since 1989, and was last re-elected in 2000. His current five-year term was extended to seven in 2002 by means of a referendum. January 22, 2007 was seven years to the day since he took office, so his constitutional powers have formally expired. But a 2002 ruling by the Uzbek parliament says elections are due only in the third week in December of the year when a president’s term expires.



Human rights activists argue that Karimov cannot legitimately act as president between now and the election date. The authorities have failed to comment on the issue.



Commentators say the presidential hopefuls will not achieve anything, but could attract public attention to the issue of Karimov’s legitimacy.



According to a Tashkent-based lawyer, the chances that the nominees will be registered as candidates are “minimal”. Only registered political parties or elected bodies are allowed to nominate presidential candidates.



“In addition, the election legislation says that [potential candidates] have to collect signatures from a minimum of one per cent of Uzbekistan’s electorate. I’m sure the central electoral committee will say of some of the signatures are fake when they check them, and refused to grant [candidates] registration,” said the lawyer.



The authorities are unlikely to react to attempts to put the spotlight on awkward questions about the election.



According to the former leader of a pro-government party, who did not want to be named, Karimov will never agree to hand over power, even to a chosen successor.



“Karimov has said, ‘I will serve my people until I die’. He will only ‘serve’ his people as president…and he won’t allow these or any other candidates to be registered,” he said.



According to a source in the opposition Committee for the National Salvation of Uzbekistan, the president is currently considering several courses of action, which include ducking the legitimacy question and simply standing for re-election, and or introducing a parliamentary system of government so that he can become prime minister.



These early nominations of alternative candidates will make him decide between the various options more quickly, the source said.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)