Uzbekistan voted yesterday in a state-managed parliamentary election shrugged off as meaningless by voters in a nation key to Western efforts to contain the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
Once critical of Uzbekistan’s human rights abuses and intolerance of dissent, the West has kept quiet ahead of the vote as it seeks to engage it more in US efforts in Afghanistan.
Ex-Soviet Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous nation, has never held a vote judged free and fair by Western observers.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Yesterday’s vote is certain to hand allies of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, in power for two decades, all seats in the lower house of parliament. The country has no opposition parties and most pro-democracy activists are either in jail or in exile abroad.
“There is no point,” said one man in the capital Tashkent ahead of the voting. “It is meaningless.”
Another young man said: “People here seriously do not care. ... It’s not an election.”
Fearful of state reprisals, residents of Tashkent, an ancient Silk Road city rebuilt in Soviet times, have been reluctant to speak openly.
Despite widespread apathy, the official turnout was likely to be high in a country where, in an echo to its Soviet past, voting is often compulsory in neighborhoods and companies.
The US effectively cut off ties with Tashkent in 2005 after condemning it for opening fire on protesters in the city of Andizhan, killing hundreds, witnesses said.
This year, however, relations warmed after Uzbekistan agreed to allow supplies to pass through its territory en route to Afghanistan, with which it shares a long border. The EU also lifted sanctions on Uzbekistan in October.
In yesterday’s vote, candidates from four parties are contesting 150 seats in the lower house. The Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan, focused on environmental issues, automatically gets 15 seats in the chamber.
In an effort to add a veneer of competitiveness to the vote, the four parties have publicly criticized each other, mainly over social policy, while praising Karimov’s achievements.
The election-monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe did not send a full mission, saying none of its earlier recommendations had been implemented.
The state has defended the election as democratic.
“The election is taking part in an increasingly active and healthy environment of social and political competition among parties,” Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov, Central Election Commission chief, told reporters on the eve of the vote.
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