Presidential election slated for December 23 is the talk of the day in Uzbekistan. Will Islam Karimov run for president again? How does he intend to circumvent Article 90 of the Constitution stating that one and the same person cannot be the president of the Republic of Uzbekistan more than two times in a row? Karimov has been the head of state for seventeen years now. He was elected the president twice - in 1991 and 2000. His reign was extended at two referendums. The one in 2001 included two issues, namely transition to a parliament of two houses and extension of presidency from five to seven years.

Experts assume that the events may follow the Turkmen script (the Turkmenbashi was asked to remain the ruler for life) or the Kazakh one (where limitations were lifted for Nursultan Nazarbayev in view of his services to the state). "The political system remains unchanged. Expecting any breakthroughs is therefore pointless. Even the advanced Kazakhstan failed to demonstrate serious democratic innovations when the presidential election was taking place there, and Uzbekistan is even less ready for political innovations," Farhad Tolipov of the University of Global Economics and Diplomacy said.

Amendment of the Constitution is a routine way of ensuring Karimov's participation in the presidential race. It may be done easily. Amendments to the Constitution are forwarded to the parliament, their adoption requires two thirds of the votes in both houses. "Everything is quite prosaic. If Karimov wants presidency, he will have it. All other issues are automatically removed from the agenda. The political situation in Uzbekistan is more boring than anywhere else," Aleksei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center said.

Nobody doubts that Karimov will decide to remain the president. Addressing the parliament on the 16th anniversary of state sovereignty of Uzbekistan, Karimov announced that he had "laid the foundation of statehood and stable development". The foundation laid, the hour has struck to reap the dividends.

It is in cooperation with Russia that Uzbekistan gets economic and political dividends. Moscow and Tashkent are allies under the terms of a Russian-Uzbek treaty. Karimov even authorized establishment of a Russian-Uzbek consortium that develops gas fields in Uzbekistan. The decision to sell the not yet privatized enterprises to Russian businesses was recently made.

"No alternatives to Karimov are glimpsed," Tolipov said. The opposition, both domestic and abroad, lacks the resources to aspire for state power or influence. "Society is mostly conformist," Tolipov said. "This political dormancy is not going to be endless," Malashenko said. "Political stagnation in Uzbekistan involves accumulation of negative energy. Life teaches us that situations like that end in revolutions and other unexpected events."

Victoria Panfilova, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 24, 2007, p. 7. © Translated by Ferghana.Ru