Registan.net

Tolkun at neweurasia.net has written an excellent roundup of the excitement brewing over the forthcoming presidential election in Uzbekistan.

In any other democratic country (Uzbekistan is declared to be democratic), there would be hot political debates among candidates for presidency and pre-election campaigns going very actively all over the country. But not in Uzbekistan. No one in this country seems to care about it. No one, except few independent journalists and human rights activists (who didn’t leave the country yet) dare to speak about this already “tabooed” topic.

Oh. There is some fun speculation about Gulnara Karimova (who loves beating up old men for tea), and ways about how Karimov might hold on to power—including the sad fact that the muted international reaction to Nazarbayev’s “President 4EVA” reforms have created something of a precedent for him to rewrite the Constitution so he’ll no longer be staying in office 11 months past the expiration of his term.

Still—I find Uzbekistan’s Presidential race/farce much more interesting and far less tedious or frustrating than the years-long campaign in the U.S.

Stumble it!