Podshoh Karimov

At TOL Abdujalil Abdurasulov has an interesting article on legitimacy and the presidency of Islam Karimov. Questions of legitimacy are more an exercise for commentators than a real political issue, he points out. Uzbekistan’s citizens know Karimov is the de facto president regardless of issues of constitutional interpretation, and little is going to change that. Or, as the Uzbeks I talk to regularly here in town say, there are far more important things for Uzbeks to worry about. Indifference and fatalism seem to be common themes.

“The attitude of the people toward Karimov changed long before the official end of his term,” said Akmal, a student from Uzbekistan who also declined to use his real name. “He is no longer called president; many people refer to him as podsho, he said, using the Uzbek word for king.

The closest thing to popular legitimacy questions in Uzbekistan are the large number of small protests that have recently taken place. Abdurasulov mentions a number of these protests. They are not isolated to any particular part of the country, but they all have a common theme, economics. Recent protests have been about interference with trade or gas shortages. And as a Bukhara resident mentions in the story, protesters are far not calling for a change in government, just for their problems to be solved.

Small protests seem to be increasingly common, and unless the government suddenly finds a way to please everyone this December, it may have to deal with protests during the presidential election.

And regarding that election, Abdurasulov points out another possible explanation Karimov may offer for why he can run again.

Karimov will run again. His current term could be recast as his first term under the 2002 constitutional changes.

He also says a referendum to allow him to run again — the most likely scenario, in my opinion – is a possibility.

This post was written by...

Nathan Hamm – author of 2974 posts on Registan.net.

Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.

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