The Making of Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan

On September 9, the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan nominated the incumbent president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, to be the party’s candidate in Uzbekistan’s October 24 presidential election.

Mirziyoyev will win the election. Ever since the country became independent in late 1991, the outcome of a presidential election has never been in doubt.

This is one of the problems Mirziyoyev has with attempting to project the image of a new Uzbekistan, and himself as a reformer. He has made some significant changes since coming to power in 2016, but some aspects of Uzbek politics look similar or the same as they did when the authoritarian leader Islam Karimov was Uzbekistan’s president.

Stepping Out of the Shadows

Mirziyoyev was appointed Uzbekistan’s prime minister in 2003. In 2016, after Karimov’s death was announced on September 2, Senate Speaker Nigmatulla Yuldashev became acting president, in accordance with the constitution. But on September 8, when parliament convened to confirm Yuldashev’s temporary position, Yuldashev deferred to Mirziyoyev since the latter was “better known” to Uzbekistan’s people.

Better known than Yuldashev to be sure, but when Karimov was alive, no government officials except Karimov received much media attention in Uzbekistan. Mirziyoyev’s reputation was that of an enforcer for Karimov, who threatened and even physically assaulted those who failed to carry out their tasks and meet government quotas.

The process by which Mirziyoyev became leader was opaque. Karimov likely died on August 27, but that information was withheld until after Uzbekistan marked its independence day on September 1. Then-Finance Minister Rustam Azimov and then-National Security Service (SNB) chief Rustam Inoyatov were also strong contenders to take Karimov’s place. Apparently, they all agreed on Mirziyoyev assuming power. The reclusive Inoyatov was characteristically quiet about the transfer of power, but Azimov appeared on state television on September 9 to say he supported Mirziyoyev being named interim president.

A snap election was called for December 4, 2016. During the campaign the same glowing adjectives state media used to describe Karimov appeared before Mirziyoyev’s name. Mirziyoyev won, receiving more than 90 percent of the votes. It looked like business as usual in Uzbekistan.

A New Era

However, at the time Mirziyoyev took power, Uzbekistan had some pressing concerns. Something needed to be done about the economic malaise the country had fallen into during the last years of Karimov’s rule. Uzbekistan’s government had a reputation as a rights-abuser and a fickle ally, and had become an isolationist state. The scowl that was so often seen on Karimov’s face epitomized his style of leadership. He was harsh, threatening, and unsympathetic to the point of not lifting a finger to keep his own nephew, an independent journalist, out of a psychiatric hospital.

Whatever people thought about Mirziyoyev as prime minister, the person who became president was publicly very different than earlier tales had portrayed him. President Mirziyoyev smiles for the cameras and when he is angry, his anger is usually directed at some official. Mirziyoyev needed popular support and there was no better way to get it than to attack Uzbekistan’s feckless government officials.

When Mirziyoyev called the prosecutor’s office the “biggest thieves” in the country, told the Finance Ministry to get rid of the “rats” working there, or said a leading official in the SNB was a “traitor,” he was voicing the anger and outrage of Uzbekistan’s people.

Beyond giving Mirziyoyev the appearance of a man of the people, his harsh criticisms of the work of the Finance Ministry and the SNB helped Mirziyoyev chase his rivals for power out of politics, most importantly Azimov and Inoyatov.

Azimov had been finance minister for 14 of Uzbekistan’s first 25 years of independence (1998-2000 and 2005-2016), but he was not reappointed to that position after Mirziyoyev was elected president and new cabinet appointments were made. He continued as a deputy prime minister in charge of the economy, but Mirziyoyev’s frequent criticisms of the Finance Ministry led Azimov to resign in June 2017.

Mirziyoyev picked off top officials in the SNB one by one, and at the end of January 2018, he went to SNB headquarters and sacked Inoyatov, who had been SNB chief since 1995. The SNB was then transformed into the State Security Service (SBU).

They were not alone in losing their positions. More than 500 employees at the Finance Ministry were fired. Interior Minister Adham Ahmedbayev was dismissed in January 2017. Provincial governors, city mayors, district chiefs, police chiefs, prosecutors, and other officials were also changed by the new president.

Mirziyoyev’s family members and acquaintances who had fallen from grace during the Karimov period reappeared. The nearly forgotten National Guard was resurrected and reformed into a force that assumed duties of both the SNB/SBU and Interior Ministry. The National Guard commander is Bahodir Tashmatov. Tashmatov’s deputy is Batyr Tursunov, an old man whose career in security began with the KGB of the late Soviet era. Tursunov is the father of Oybek Tursunov, who is married to Mirziyoyev’s eldest daughter, Saida.

Oybek Tursunov is a successful businessman and also the deputy head of the presidential administration. Mirziyoyev’s other son-in-law, Otabek Shakhanov, is deputy head of presidential security. The president’s eldest daughter, Saida, is the deputy director of the Agency for Information and Mass Communications (AIMC), a position that also makes her a deputy advisor to the president. His youngest daughter, Shahnoza, is a department chief in the Preschool Education Ministry.

Shortly after being named acting president, Mirziyoyev brought Abdulla Aripov back as a deputy prime minister in charge of youth affairs, culture, information systems, and telecommunications. Aripov had been in that post previously, until 2012 when he was caught up in scandals involving illegal payments the Swedish telecom TeliaSonera made to Karimov’s eldest daughter, Gulnara, for contracts in Uzbekistan.

Swedish prosecutor Gunnar Stetler said in 2016, “One can see Aripov’s signature on many of the documents connected to this affair.”

Aripov was dismissed and briefly faced criminal charges, but those were dropped in 2013. He faded from public view, working as a university professor, until Mirziyoyev came to power. After Mirziyoyev was elected president, Aripov became prime minister.

Businessman Jahonghir Artykhojayev suffered serious setbacks in 2012, too. Artykhojayev later said it was because of the “political regime.” But after Mirziyoyev came to power, Artykhojayev’s outlook improved and he reportedly “took all the major business projects in the country under his control.” On April 26, 2018, he was appointed mayor of the capital, Tashkent, and since has awarded several lucrative contracts for projects in Tashkent under shady circumstances.

Tashkent City, for example, is a $1.3 billion project to build residential and commercial complexes in the center of the Uzbek capital. A Foreign Policy Centre report wrote, “No transparent tender process took place,” and “When questions were asked about the level of due diligence conducted during the selection and award process… Artikhodjayev informed the media, ‘if we ask the beneficiary for each investor, we can close the gates of Uzbekistan, nobody will come here.’”

Former Interior Minister Zakir Almatov also returned in February 2018 to the newly created post of advisor to the Interior Ministry. Almatov was a central figure in the Andijan massacre of May 2005, when troops opened fire on protesters. Officially, 189 people were killed, most of them soldiers and members of an armed group that had hijacked what was a peaceful protest. Witnesses claim the figure was several times higher and mostly unarmed civilians. Almatov’s troops were the ones firing on the crowd, and he became the scapegoat for Andijan. He retired for health reasons later that year.

Almatov’s return to the Interior Ministry was interesting since Mirziyoyev was prime minister during the tragic events in Andijan, and there has never been much information about what role, if any, Mirziyoyev played as the situation unfolded there.

Keeping His Promises?

In some areas, Mirziyoyev has achieved some progress or at least changed the tone of the government on certain issues. For example, Mirziyoyev vowed to end forced labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields and the International Labor Organization agrees the situation is better now. Yet the long-running practice of conscripting at one time up to 1 million people into the fields annually has not been totally eradicated. The miserly wages they were paid in Karimov’s time have been raised to a more respectable level, but the practice of pressuring people into the fields has not totally disappeared, despite severe warnings from Mirziyoyev.

On November 24, 2016, Samandar Kukanov was released from prison. Kukanov had been in prison since 1993 after his opposition to Karimov resulted in him being charged and convicted of embezzlement. Kukanov was among the first of dozens of political prisoners released since Mirziyoyev became Uzbekistan’s leader. Most of those freed were old men and all seemed to have been unjustly imprisoned; their releases were widely seen as a positive sign. Dozens more people convicted on charges of belonging to banned Islamic groups were released also and in August 2019, Mirziyoyev announced the notorious Jaslyk prison would be closed.

Mirziyoyev publicly champions the work of journalists. On February 4, 2021, he told a group of journalists in Ferghana Province, “I’m counting on your help. I view you as a force that tells the people fairly about our achievements and shortcomings.” Mirziyoyev added, “Do not be afraid, the president stands behind you.”

When journalists of Kun.uz got into an argument with Tashkent Mayor Artykhojayev in November 2019, Artykhojayev warned the journalists they could “disappear.” The Kun.uz journalists released a recording of their exchange with Artykhojayev and it caused a scandal, but Mirziyoyev merely said officials needed to abandon the “old” ways of treating the media. Artykhojayev remained in his post but was reprimanded for his threats; the journalists were reprimanded for recording the exchange and making it public.

Media were reprimanded in other instances, illustrating the boundaries that remain despite Mirziyoyev’s statements. For example, in November 2020, the AIMC warned several outlets about reporting on nationwide shortages of electricity and heating. The AIMC sent a letter to Gazeta.uz, which Gazeta.uz posted on its website, saying there could be “serious legal consequences” if the outlet continued reporting on the energy crisis. Kun.uz received a warning, too, and so did Zo’rTV.

The Political Arena

Boundaries exist, too, in the political arena despite talk of opening. In December 2019, Mirziyoyev said, “I, as president, am not against opposition (parties),” but he said opposition parties would need to have members who “know the problems of the people, have lived through all these problems, have been drinking the water here and eating the bread here.”

Uzbekistan’s electoral laws allow only candidates from registered political parties to participate in elections. There are currently five registered political parties – The People’s Democratic Party (formerly the Communist Party in the Soviet era), Adolat (Justice), Milli Tiklanish (National Revival), the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, and the Ecological Party.

The Erk (Will) Democratic Party was formed just before Uzbekistan became independent and was registered right after independence. It was the first party to be registered in independent Uzbekistan. But Karimov’s government quickly made it impossible for the party to operate and its registration was revoked, its leaders pressured.

On January 10, 2020, a delegation from Erk met with Uzbek Justice Minister Ruslanbek Davletov to try to register the party again, in time to compete in the 2021 presidential election. But Davletov reportedly told the Erk members, “This party is part of the past, forget about it.”

Mirziyoyev’s comment about an opposition drinking the water and eating the bread “here” was clearly aimed at longtime Erk leader Muhammad Solih, who fled Uzbekistan more than 25 years ago and currently resides in Turkey. So Erk announced in early 2021 it would field a different presidential candidate, Jahonghir Otajanov, a former singer.

Harassment of Otajanov and Erk intensified in May when Erk representatives, despite still not being registered with the Justice Ministry, met in Tashkent to formally select Otajanov as their candidate for president. A group of some 20 unknown people forced their way into Otajanov’s home and broke up the meeting. On July 10, Otajanov announced on Instagram that he was withdrawing from the race because of pressure on his family members.

Similarly, Khidirnazar Allaqulov, a former rector at Termez University, was unable to register his Haqiqat va Taraqqiyot (Truth and Development) Party with the Justice Ministry so they could field a candidate in the presidential election. Party meetings were disrupted by the sudden appearance of groups of rowdy strangers. A court fined Allaqulov for slandering the people who waylaid him in the hallway of his building and tried to start a fight with him, because Allaqulov said they waylaid him in the hallway and tried to start a fight with him. Court bailiffs came to Allaqulov’s home and confiscated all his appliances to cover the fine.

RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported in June that police were going to universities in at least three provinces to warn students not to join any newly created political parties.

Rebooting the Uzbek Economy

Mirziyoyev said the economy would also be a priority in his reform program. After he became leader, Uzbek business delegations fanned out over Asia, Europe, and the United States. Mirziyoyev’s release of prisoners helped encourage Western governments and businesses to engage with a “new” Uzbekistan.

Karimov had long squandered Uzbekistan business potential and Mirziyoyev sought to capitalize on it instead. Investors easily saw the potential of a country with the largest population in Central Asia, which borders all the other Central Asian states and Afghanistan. Uzbekistan is also a state with significant resources – gold, uranium, oil, natural gas – as well as a rich agricultural sector. Corruption was a problem, but so too was the official exchange rate and problems converting hard currency under Karimov.

On January 1, 2016, the official exchange rate of the Uzbek national currency, the som, was 2,809.98 to one U.S. dollar. The black-market rate at that time was about 6,200 som to the dollar. On September 3, 2017, when the exchange rate was 4,210 som to the dollar, and the black-market rate was about 7,700, Mirziyoyev signed a decree liberalizing the country’s currency policies. On September 5, Uzbekistan’s Central Bank set the rate at 8,100 to the dollar and lifted restrictions on the amount of foreign currencies individuals and companies could buy. Such moves encouraged foreign businesses to come, or return, to Uzbekistan. A recent Financial Times article noted Uzbekistan had “moved from ranking 141st in the World Bank’s index on ease of doing business in 2015 to 69th (in 2020).”

To his credit, Mirziyoyev has tried to implement projects meant to help Uzbekistan’s poor families. But they have not been well-thought through. Not long after becoming president, Mirziyoyev ordered chickens to be given to low-income families, saying the families would have eggs to eat and to sell. Unfortunately, many of those families had no idea how to raise chickens. After about a year, the program was scrapped. Mirziyoyev has also urged low-income families to plant lemon trees, licorice, and saffron, but so far this has not led to a noticeable improvement in the economic condition of such families.

Also to his credit, Mirziyoyev shows appreciation for Uzbek migrant laborers, and has worked with domestic transportation bodies to facilitate safe travel to and from labor destinations. He’s negotiated with officials in Russia, where most of Uzbekistan’s labor migrants work, to improve labor conditions and ease bureaucratic processes.

This contrasts sharply with Karimov, who once called the several million Uzbek citizens engaged in migrant labor “lazy beggars.” Remittances accounted for the equivalent of around 5.9 percent of Uzbekistan’s GDP in 2015, the last full year Karimov was in power, but rose to around 15 percent in 2018 and 2019, according to the World Bank. Uzbekistan’s unemployment figures are often unreliable, but in May 2020, before the impact of the pandemic fully hit Uzbekistan’s economy, Deputy Finance Minister Dilshod Sultanov said unemployment was 9.4 percent. Remittances are an important source of income for families in Uzbekistan and the ability to migrate for work has prevented 2 million or more eligible workers from joining the ranks of the unemployed in Uzbekistan and potentially heightening social unrest.

Uzbekistan Looks Outward

Mirziyoyev’s foreign policy is undoubtedly his biggest success. Uzbek officials have long lamented Uzbekistan’s unenviable distinction of being one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world – a state that borders only other landlocked countries (the other is Liechtenstein). Karimov’s aggressive policy toward neighboring states hurt Uzbekistan’s ability to trade.

Mirziyoyev pledged to improve ties with Uzbekistan’s immediate neighbors, including Afghanistan, and he quickly made good on this promise. By the end of September 2016,  Uzbek officials had restarted long-stalled border demarcation talks with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, trade talks with Turkmenistan, and Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov had visited Tajikistan. Uzbekistan hosted an international forum on Afghanistan in March 2018, and started a dialogue with the Taliban, something that is now paying dividends.

Karimov viewed Uzbekistan, with the largest military and population in Central Asia, as a natural leader for the transformation of the region after the Soviet Union collapsed. Karimov dictated terms and when the governments of neighboring states objected or resisted, he used whatever means he had at his disposal to pressure or punish them.

Mirziyoyev is accomplishing what Karimov envisioned by using the carrot instead of the stick. His first official visits after being elected president were to Turkmenistan then Kazakhstan in March 2017. He visited Kyrgyzstan in September that year and Tajikistan in March 2018. The symbolism of Mirziyoyev traveling to visit the neighboring countries rather than their leaders coming to Uzbekistan for these first official meetings went a long way toward warming ties. The first summit of just Central Asian leaders in nearly 20 years took place in then-Astana, the Kazakh capital, in March 2018 and the host, then-Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, mentioned that it happened because of the change of leadership in Uzbekistan.

Mirziyoyev reached out to the other Central Asian leaders when the coronavirus started to spread in Central Asia. Uzbekistan sent aid to neighboring states to help them cope with the pandemic. By being a good neighbor, Uzbekistan is also becoming a leader in Central Asia.

Mirziyoyev has greatly improved relations with Russia while managing, so far, to avoid becoming a member of Russian-led organizations like the Collective Security Treaty Organization or the Eurasian Economic Union. Mirziyoyev went to Washington in May 2018, the first visit by an Uzbek president since 2002, and he has visited Beijing, New Delhi, Berlin, Paris, and other world capitals, shoring up old relationships and creating new ones.

After a 10-year absence, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) reopened its office in Tashkent in November 2017. Uzbekistan has also strengthened ties with the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank.

The Old and the New

As Mirziyoyev enters his second term (and he will) Uzbekistan’s foreign relations, especially regional relations, are much better than they were in 2016 when he became leader. The economy is showing signs of moving forward, buoyed during the pandemic by sales of gold that allowed Uzbekistan to be one of the few countries to show some economic growth in 2020.

But labor and social reforms are lagging. Uzbekistan’s population in July 2016, two months before Mirziyoyev came to power, was 31.807 million. By September 2021, the population was estimated at more than 35 million. It will be close to 40 million by the time Mirziyoyev’s second term is coming to an end and his policies during his second term will have to include feeding and employing the ballooning number of Uzbeks.

The biggest question is what will Mirziyoyev do when his second, and constitutionally final, term in office approaches?

Precedent not only from Uzbekistan, but from all of Central Asia, would suggest Mirziyoyev will not leave office, whether that takes changes to the constitution or simply ignoring term limits as Karimov did. Should Mirziyoyev choose to stay on as president beyond 2026, as seems likely, his days of being called a reformer would end once and for all. But a cooperative and reliable Uzbekistan might very well compensate for disappointment at a lack of domestic reforms.