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Islam A. Karimov wins election |
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Written by Staff Writer
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Dec 24, 2007 at 10:16 AM |
The incumbent president of Uzbekistan, Islam A. Karimov, won 88.1 percent of the votes in a landslide presidential election yeseterday.
The results give Mr. Karimov overwhelming support for a third term, but the contest was widely accepted as a foregone conclusion and casts doubt on the country’s long-term stability.
While the Central Election Commission said the voting met electoral standards, the election drew criticism from Western election observers. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the West’s main mechanism for monitoring elections in the former Soviet sphere, and which sent a limited observer mission to Kyrgyzstan, said that the election failed to meet many O.S.C.E. benchmarks for democratic elections, were held in a strictly controlled environment, and that there had been no real opposition. “All the candidates publicly endorsed the incumbent,” the O.S.C.E. said.
Mr. Karimov has ruled Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic of 28 million people, since becoming first secretary of the local Communist Party in 1989.
Uzbekistan, about the size of California, holds a strategic geographic and political position in Central Asia, a region being heavily courted by Russia, China, the United States and the European Union. It is rich in cotton, gold, gas and oil, and an American air base there supported operations in Afghanistan, across its southern border, until the government asked the Americans to leave in 2005.
But even as Mr. Karimov tightens his grip over his country, some political analysts have expressed concern that he is merely postponing a possibly violent power struggle that could follow his eventual departure. Throughout the region and beyond, the question for many is not if Uzbekistan — the region’s largest country in terms of population — will experience instability, but when.
Since declaring its independence in 1991, the country has organized regular elections, but not one has been found to be legitimate by Western observers. In the last election, in 1999, Mr. Karimov received 92 percent of the vote, while his challenger said that even he would vote for the Uzbek leader. In this race, Mr. Karimov faces three straw challengers distinguished only by their lack of charisma and ambition.
Mr. Karimov, who turns 70 next month, could hold on to power for some time, but he has not designated a successor or provided any means to transfer power. The country’s internal politics are obscure at best, and many analysts say the government is riven by factions.
“Today, the most important and topical issue is to demonstrate our political maturity while holding the presidential polls by strictly observing the Constitution, laws and generally accepted international norms,” Mr. Karimov said while casting his ballot, state media reported. |
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