Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov's term of office expires today. Karimov has been ruling Uzbekistan ever since the Soviet era, since June 1989 when he was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Karimov will be 69 in a week. He became the president (last time) on January 22, 2000, exactly seven years ago, after his victory in the presidential race on January 9 that year. It was Karimov's third term of office. His first presidency (in what was still the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic then) began in March 1990, following election by the republican Supreme Soviet. Uzbekistan became a sovereign state shortly after that and Karimov promptly became its president (in December 1991).

This 1991 election was the only one where voters were offered an alternative. Karimov was then running for president against poet Muhammad Salih (Salai Madaminov), leader of the democratic party Erk. According to official estimates, Karimov polled 86%, Salih 12.7%. Salih, 58, is an immigrant living in Europe. He is wanted by the Uzbek authorities for involvement in organization of terrorist acts in Uzbekistan in 1999. Salih was even sentenced (in absentia) to 14.5 years imprisonment.

In 2000, Karimov was running for president against another rival, namely leader of the People's Democratic Party (former Communist Party) Abdurahim Jalolov. Beating Jalolov was not exactly difficult because his campaign was entered around the calls to the electorate to vote for Karimov.

It goes without saying that referendums took place in Uzbekistan, just like in practically every other post-Soviet country, that extended the presidential term of office. Karimov had his five-year long presidency extended by another five years in March 1995. The referendum in January 2002 extended the term of office from five to seven years. Karimov himself announced then that it was done "in the name of the future of the republic and not for the sake of any individual." It was in the name of the future of course that the parliament passed a law that applied the outcome of the referendum to the acting president. It allowed Karimov to extend his term of office by two years.

These seven years expire today. Nobody in Uzbekistan seems to care that they do, nobody is launching presidential campaigns or anything. The prevailing opinion in the republic is that everything is being done by the book, i.e. by Article 117 of the Constitution which was amended in the wake of the 2000 referendum. The amended article states that elections at all levels of state power are organized "the year when the term of office expires, in the first Sunday of the third decade of December." It means that between tomorrow and December 23, 2007, the day of the presidential election, Karimov's legitimacy as the president is going to be questionable (to put it mildly). Article 90 of the Constitution sets the term of office for presidents at 7 years and not at 7 years and 11 months...

Human rights activist Jahongir Shosalimov (who earns his daily bread as a vendor at the Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent) tried to focus the attention of the Constitutional Court of Uzbekistan on this discrepancy but failed. The law gives the Constitutional Court ten days to answer citizens' appeals. Shosalimov approached it on January 9 and has never received an answer. The vendor is understandably distressed because he has already self-nominated for president. Uznews.net web site reports that 10,000 of vendors are prepared to vote for Shosalimov.

Arkady Dubnov

Vremya Novostei, January 22, 2007, p. 5