Seven year term of office of the president of Uzbekistan expired in late January 2007. Since election has never been announced, media outlets feel free to speculate on the subject. All hypotheses and forecasts come down to three scenarios that are regarded as the likeliest: a referendum extending the presidential term of office, election with Karimov running for president again, and election without Karimov. Which will it be?

Referendum

The population is so indifferent towards politics that the outcome of the referendum, provided it is organized of course, is essentially a foregone conclusion. Two previous referendums (in 1995 and 2002) show that the authorities always get what they want. In other words, this option is quite likely particularly since the opposition is disjoined and cannot organize protests in the country. The international opinion is the only catch.

Uzbekistan is not the only post-Soviet country to have made use of referendums. Its neighbors do not hesitate to organize referendums too. Practically all presidents elected in the wake of disintegration of the USSR were limited by two-term provisions at first, but referendums took care of that. Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan chose different means to practically the same end.

All this tampering with constitutions was frowned at in the West. Countries of the region cannot help taking the opinion of the United States and European Union into account. Or, rather, they cannot afford to fail to take it into account. Referendums are no longer fashionable. Presidents of Kazakhstan (2005) and Tajikistan (2006) extended their reigns through elections. Presidential election is even expected in Turkmenistan, the country where the last such even took place 16 years ago. (Six candidates run for president, the election is slated for February 11.)

A new trend is undeniable in Central Asia nowadays. Central Asian leaders are out to legitimize their regimes through the instrument of election. Now that elections have taken place in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, official Tashkent is unlikely to want to be an outsider.

There is another factor that should be mentioned here. Tashkent must go through the motions of democratic procedures because of the signal it recently received from the European Union that international sanctions might be eased or even lifted (the sanctions became the response of the international community horrified by the massacre in Andijan).

Election with Karimov

The question here remains the same: will the West acknowledge legitimacy of the election with the results known in advance?

Let us therefore consider presidential elections in other Central Asian countries. Running for re-election in 2005, Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan enjoyed powerful international support. Not even US politicians, former and incumbent, remained disinterested observers. Praising Nazarbayev for having elevated Kazakhstan "to the leading positions in the region" and enabled it to "become a nexus of Eurasia in the 21st century, a place where all roads meet", US State Secretary Condolleezza Rice demonstrated official Washington's new attitude towards the "old" leaders it had criticized only recently for their patent unwillingness to step down. Neither the Americans nor anybody else entertained any illusions with regard to who would come in first in the presidential race in Kazakhstan.

Tajikistan became the second Central Asian country where the West demonstrated its pragmatic approach. US State Undersecretary Richard Boucher visited the republic on the eve of the presidential election in 2006 and said, "This election may become a step forward in observance of all international laws and standards in establishment of democratic institutions and reinforcement of national stability." A spokesman for the OSCE who commented on the absence of alternative that was undermining legitimacy of the election earned a sharply-worded diatribe from President Emomali Rakhmonov, "We cannot meet OSCE requirements or international standards because 99% of the population of Tajikistan are Moslems. International norms are therefore beyond our reach for the time being."

The European Union must have learned the lesson. Its officials nowadays are openly courting Central Asian countries despite the lamentable state of affairs with democratic freedoms in the latter. They know that they may lose important partners in the energy sphere otherwise.

Europeans' new strategy in Central Asia will probably be outlined in the Concept expected in April. It does not take a genius to foresee that Uzbekistan will be playing a special part in this strategy. Active contacts between the European Union and Uzbekistan confirm it, and so do the words of a major EU executive who is convinced that "vital interests of the European Union include development of relations with Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries in the spheres of energy, transport, and environmental protection."

Uzbekistan's relations with the international community are improving indeed. The sides have even reached a compromise on the events in Andijan on May 13, 2005, the very cause of the partial international isolation of Uzbekistan. Restoration of relations with Tashkent is known in the European Union as "critical dialogue".

The Europeans will certainly demand from the Uzbek authorities some steps in terms of democratization. Tashkent in its turn is prepared to meet the Europeans halfway - but only to a certain extent. Something has to be done to sweeten the pill for the West and persuade it to put up with the election whose winner is known in advance.

Election without Karimov

Election without Karimov and on the day specified by the Constitution (December 23, 2007) will certainly become a sensation. Of course, Karimov is not going to leave big-time politics altogether. He may orchestrate his own transfer to the upper house of the parliament which will be wielding a great deal of presidential powers due to the planned political reforms.

As a matter of fact, Karimov meant precisely that when he had a parliament of two houses formed in the country in 2002. Men who know what they are talking about maintain that the Andijani events compelled official Tashkent to table these plans because the country was in the focus of the West's attention then. International pressure was applied to Uzbekistan. Karimov responded with having non-governmental organizations, most of them American, driven from the country. Democratization, even partial and halfhearted, was out of the question while the country was in isolation.

Some sources imply that the whole project has been retrieved and dusted off. Its adoption now promises some interesting changes. The authorities mean to ease the regime (somewhat) in the country, to become more transparent in the relations with neighbors, and to restore relations with the international community. Needless to say, reforms like that (even mostly illusory) require some serious motives. The motive is easy to guess. Introducing certain self-restrictions, the authorities offer the West an exchange: modernization (or at least an attempt at modernization) in return for acknowledgement of legitimacy of transfer of the reign to the only person the president trust - his daughter Gulnara.

As a matter of fact, the president may even step down before his time is up to have the country passed down to Gulnara at some later date. This is actually the likeliest variant - even if Karimov is elected the president again. Like his Kazakh counterpart, Karimov has to solve the problem of succession. The situation in Uzbekistan being what it is, the choice is his and his alone.

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Sanobar Shermatova (exclusive for Ferghana.Ru)