MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Uzbekistan
Index
Despite the trappings of institutional change, the first years of
independence saw more resistance than acceptance of the institutional
changes required for democratic reform to take hold. Whatever initial
movement toward democracy existed in Uzbekistan in the early days of
independence seems to have been overcome by the inertia of the remaining
Soviet-style strong centralized leadership.
In the Soviet era, Uzbekistan organized its government and its local
communist party in conformity with the structure prescribed for all the
republics. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) occupied the
central position in ruling the country. The party provided both the
guidance and the personnel for the government structure. The system was
strictly bureaucratic: every level of government and every governmental
body found its mirror image in the party. The tool used by the CPSU to
control the bureaucracy was the system of nomenklatura , a list
of sensitive jobs in the government and other important organizations that
could be filled only with party approval. The nomenklatura
defined the Soviet elite, and the people on the list invariably were
members of the CPSU.
Following the failure of the coup against the Gorbachev government in
Moscow in August 1991, Uzbekistan's Supreme Soviet declared the
independence of the republic, henceforth to be known as the Republic of
Uzbekistan. At the same time, the Communist Party of Uzbekistan voted to
cut its ties with the CPSU; three months later, it changed its name to the
People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (PDPU), but the party leadership,
under President Islam Karimov, remained in place. Independence brought a
series of institutional changes, but the substance of governance in
Uzbekistan changed much less dramatically.
On December 21, 1991, together with the leaders of ten other Soviet
republics, Karimov agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union and form the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS--see Glossary), of which
Uzbekistan became a charter member according to the Alma-Ata Declaration.
Shortly thereafter, Karimov was elected president of independent
Uzbekistan in the new country's first contested election. Karimov drew 86
percent of the vote against opposition candidate Mohammed Salikh, whose
showing experts praised in view of charges that the election had been
rigged. The major opposition party, Birlik, had been refused registration
as an official party in time for the election.
In 1992 the PDPU retained the dominant position in the executive and
legislative branches of government that the Communist Party of Uzbekistan
had enjoyed. All true opposition groups were repressed and physically
discouraged. Birlik, the original opposition party formed by intellectuals
in 1989, was banned for allegedly subversive activities, establishing the
Karimov regime's dominant rationalization for increased authoritarianism:
Islamic fundamentalism threatened to overthrow the secular state and
establish an Islamic regime similar to that in Iran. The constitution
ratified in December 1992 reaffirmed that Uzbekistan is a secular state.
Although the constitution prescribed a new form of legislature, the
PDPU-dominated Supreme Soviet remained in office for nearly two years
until the first parliamentary election, which took place in December 1994
and January 1995.
In 1993 Karimov's concern about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism
spurred Uzbekistan's participation in the multinational CIS peacekeeping
force sent to quell the civil war in nearby Tajikistan--a force that
remained in place three years later because of continuing hostilities.
Meanwhile, in 1993 and 1994 continued repression by the Karimov regime
brought strong criticism from international human rights organizations. In
March 1995, Karimov took another step in the same direction by securing a
99 percent majority in a referendum on extending his term as president
from the prescribed next election in 1997 to 2000. In early 1995, Karimov
announced a new policy of toleration for opposition parties and
coalitions, apparently in response to the need to improve Uzbekistan's
international commercial position. A few new parties were registered in
1995, although the degree of their opposition to the government was
doubtful, and some imprisonments of opposition political figures
continued.
The parliamentary election, the first held under the new constitution's
guarantee of universal suffrage to all citizens eighteen years of age or
older, excluded all parties except the PDPU and the progovernment Progress
of the Fatherland Party, despite earlier promises that all parties would
be free to participate. The new, 250-seat parliament, called the Oly
Majlis or Supreme Soviet, included only sixty-nine candidates running for
the PDPU, but an estimated 120 more deputies were PDPU members technically
nominated to represent local councils rather than the PDPU. The result was
that Karimov's solid majority continued after the new parliament went into
office.
Data as of March 1996
|
|