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Uzbekistan
Postindependence Changes
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
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