Uzbekistan Votes for Karimov, or Else

Islam Karimov won a new term in office with 88.1% of the votes over the week-end. He faced three opposition candidates in the race, all of whom supported him. The Commonwealth of Independent States (the wreckage of the USSR), said through spokesman Sergei Lebedev, the election “proceeded in line with the country's election legislation and universally recognized norms for holding democratic elections. It was a major factor in further democratization of social life in Uzbekistan.” Bullshit.

Mr. Karimov is an old KGB/CPUSSR hand. CNN reports he “became the top Communist boss in 1989 in what was then a Soviet republic and Soviet industry’s main cotton supplier. Since the Soviet collapse, he has won two presidential elections -- in 1991 and 1999 -- and had his term extended twice, once through parliament and again in a referendum.” And it hasn’t worked out all that well for the Uzbeks. He’s not quite Robert Mugabe, but they are in the same camp.

Originally, he was a partner in Mr. Bush’s war on terrorism and reality. After his troops killed protesters in Andizhan, a town of some size, the Americans protested, and he forced them to leave a military base there. He said at the time, "Do not interfere in our affairs, not under the pretext of furthering freedom, democracy, and do not create precedents of telling us what to do, who to befriend and how to orient ourselves.” He was using the royal plural.

Nigara Khidovatova, leader of the opposition Free Farmers Party, explained, “Uzbekistan is like the Soviet Union, but the wrong way round. Everything bad about the Soviet Union we still have. But everything that was good - like its welfare and education system - has disappeared. Our economy is feudal. The situation for workers in the countryside is one of near-slavery. Corruption is rampant.”

When turn-out tops 90% and when the government gets more than 80% of the vote, there’s something wrong. In Uzbekistan, things have been wrong for a very long time, and they look like they're going to stay that way.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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