Pearls of wisdom from Islam Karimov:
- “Such people must be shot in the forehead. If necessary, I’ll shoot them myself”
- “I’m prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people in order to save the republic”
- “The OSCE focuses only on establishment of democracy, the protection of human rights and the freedom of the press. I am now questioning these values”
Naturally, it is no surprise at all that not only will the election this weekend be little more than a guessing game of which fraction of a percent wasn’t counted as voting for Karimov’s blatantly illegal third term (his second actually ended in January), but that Karimov’s government has a penchant for mailing home the mutilated bodies of those unfortunate souls who were caught in the security sweeps and tortured to death.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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Any bets on the percent that “officially” votes for Karimov? Let’s do it Price is Right style: get as close to the percentage without going over.
My money’s on 75%
Bonus:
The turnout is over 80%
I’m hoping he can beat the 95% split.
I’ll go with 92% with 85% turnout.
You’d think that Starfleet would have a better read on it as we are in the future and all, but it’s the whole butterfly effect you see…
96.5% with turnout of 76%