Overview: The constitution of 1992 calls for a secular, democratic government system, freedom of expression and religion, and the rule of law. However, in practice the presidency, a position occupied by Islam Karimov since independence, dominates all three branches of government. In the post-Soviet era, Karimov’s power has been enhanced by referenda and constitutional amendments and by the development of a very strong internal security force. Opposition parties have been stifled, and political life revolves around Karimov rather than around political parties. The prime minister, the cabinet, and the parliament have very limited powers, and the judicial branch is fully subordinate to the executive branch. Corruption is common in all government branches and at all levels, and clan membership is a vital qualification for positions.
Executive Branch: Karimov has accumulated powers that ensure full dominance of the government process for as long as he is president. He appoints the prime minister, all members of the cabinet, all members of the judiciary, 16 members of the newly formed Senate, and all provincial executives. Karimov also has used his direct control of the National Security Service to effectively limit opposition activity. The cabinet is a rubber-stamp aggregation of eight deputy prime ministers, 14 ministers, and the heads of five agencies and state committees.
Legislative Branch: Until 2004, the legislative branch was the unicameral Supreme Assembly (Oly Majlis), consisting of 250 members elected by popular vote to five-year terms. In 2002 a constitutional amendment reduced the Oly Majlis to 120 seats and established a second, 100-member chamber, the Senate, which took office for the first time in January 2005. Members of the Senate are not elected directly; the president appoints 16 members, and six members are chosen by each of the 14 subordinate jurisdictions: 12 provinces, the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic, and the city of Tashkent. Representation of those jurisdictions in the directly elected Oly Majlis is according to population. Karimov’s power in the parliament has been evident in that body’s extension of the presidential term of office from five to seven years in 2002 and by its interpretation that Karimov’s first term extended from 1991 to 2000, enabling him to run for a “second” term. Following the two-round parliamentary elections of December 2004 and January 2005, the Oly Majlis included members from five parties, all of which were pro-government. Some 21 women held seats after the elections of 2004–5.
Judicial Branch: Uzbekistan nominally has an independent judicial branch. However, in practice decisions of the judiciary generally follow those of the Office of the Procuracy, the state prosecutorial agency, and the president has the power to appoint and remove judges. (Parliamentary approval is required for removal.) Judges of the Supreme Court, which stands at the top level of the national judicial system, are appointed to five-year terms. A Constitutional Court reviews laws and decisions for compliance with the constitution, and military courts handle all cases related to the military.
Administrative Divisions: Uzbekistan is divided into 12 provinces, one autonomous republic (Karakalpakstan), and the city of Tashkent, which has the status of a province. The provinces are divided into 156 districts. Within those districts are 123 designated municipalities.
Provincial and Local Government: Governments at the provincial, regional, and municipal levels consist of a chief executive, the hokim, and a council. The president appoints hokims of the provinces, who appoint those at district level. In turn, district hokims appoint municipal hokims, giving the president de facto control of the executive branch at every level. The councils, whose power is secondary to the executives at all levels, are directly elected for five-year terms. President Karimov has ensured the loyalty of provincial hokims by frequent removals. Provincial governments have little power compared with the national government, which oversees and funds all major functions. Karakalpakstan, which nominally has substantial autonomy, in fact is rarely included in national discussions of the Aral Sea crisis within its borders. Especially in rural areas, the national government and law enforcement agencies use committees of the mahallas, the traditional organs of community governance, to monitor potential dissident activity. About 12,000 mahallas existed in 2004.
Judicial and Legal System: Uzbekistan’s judicial system remains structurally and operationally similar to the Soviet system in place before 1992. Below the national level are provincial and regional courts, for which the Supreme Court serves as the court of appeals. Appeals are rare. Economic courts at the regional level deal with disputes between commercial entities. Judges of the lower courts are selected by a qualification collegium, which is named by the president. Murder, espionage, and treason are punishable by death. The law allows the arrest of individuals on suspicion alone, without the filing of formal charges, and the vagueness of formal grounds for arrest allows security forces to routinely arrest people without just cause. Most trials are heard by a panel of one professional judge and two lay judges, who rarely take an active role. Prosecutors dominate criminal procedure, from pretrial detention to sentencing. The quality and activity of defense lawyers are limited. Conviction rates are extremely high. The death penalty remained in effect in 2005, although few executions have been carried out in the early 2000s.
Electoral System: Suffrage is universal for individuals 18 years of age and older. All aspects of elections, particularly registration by parties and independent candidates, are controlled by the government’s Central Election Commission. An election is legally valid if more than 50 percent of eligible voters participate and a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes. In the post-Soviet era, reports of very high participation in elections and referenda have been considered unreliable. Parliamentary elections, which are held every five years, include runoffs if no candidate receives 50 percent or more in the first round. Only five parties, all pro-government, were allowed to participate in the parliamentary elections of December 2004 and the runoff elections of January 2005. The next parliamentary elections are scheduled for December 2009. In 2002 a referendum extended the president’s term of office from five to seven years; the next presidential election is scheduled for 2007.
Politics and Political Parties: In the post-Soviet era, no true opposition party has been permitted legal status. The two major opposition parties that developed in the late Soviet period, Erk (Liberty) and Birlik (Unity), have been intensely restricted, and their leaders operate from exile. Two other parties, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), which advocates an Islamic state in Uzbekistan, and Adolat (Justice), have been refused registration since the 1990s. The opposition Free Peasant Party, formed in 2003, also has not been allowed to register. The dominant party has been the People’s Democratic Party, successor to the Communist Party of Uzbekistan. The other major parties, all of which support the government, are the Liberal Democratic Party (formed with government approval in 2004), the Adolat Social Democratic Party, the Democratic National Rebirth Party, and the Self Sacrificers Party, which merged with the Fatherland Party in 2004. Each of these parties gained at least nine seats in the Oly Majlis in the parliamentary elections of 2004–5. The leading vote getters were the Liberal Democratic Party, which won 41 seats, and the People’s Democratic Party, with 33 seats.
Mass Media: Although a government decree officially eliminated state censorship in 2002, the government continues to severely restrict independent journalism. Licensing and regulation are the purview of the State Press Committee and the Inter-Agency Coordination Committee, which use their authority to harass and delay the activities of independent media outlets. In 2004 some 30 to 40 independent television stations and seven independent radio stations were in operation, but four state-owned television stations, run by the Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan, dominated the market. No live programming is allowed. Total newspaper readership is estimated at only 50,000; the newspaper market is dominated by the state-owned papers Pravda Vostoka, Halq Sozi, and Narodnoye Slovo. The largest privately owned papers are Novosti Uzbekistana, Noviy Vek, Noviy Den’, and Mohiyat. The state controls newspaper distribution and materials supply. In the early 2000s, newspaper articles occasionally have criticized government policy and social conditions, but bribery of journalists is common. The only national news agency, the Uzbekistan News Agency, is state-controlled. Agence France-Presse, Anadolu Ajansı (of Turkey), the Associated Press, Interfax (of Russia), and Reuters are foreign agencies with offices in Uzbekistan.
Foreign Relations: As the only nation in Central Asia self-sufficient in food and energy, Uzbekistan has openly sought economic domination in the region. This position has caused severe tension with neighbors Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan over a variety of issues. As Kazakhstan’s economic growth has far outstripped that of Uzbekistan, the former rather than the latter has achieved regional domination in the early 2000s. In the post-Soviet era, Uzbekistan’s principal foreign policy goal has been to ensure national security in the face of nearby conflicts in Tajikistan and Afghanistan and the possible territorial ambitions of Iran and Pakistan. In the early 2000s, the shared fear of terrorism caused Russia and Uzbekistan to strengthen bilateral security agreements, strengthening a valued Russian outpost in the former Soviet Union. In 2005 a new bilateral treaty accelerated this process. Despite ongoing criticism of human rights violations in Uzbekistan, in the early 2000s the United States signed a series of aid agreements, the non-humanitarian provisions of which were revoked in 2004. The European Union (EU) has not sought to improve relations, citing Uzbekistan’s poor human rights record. In 2005 that record and the suppression of riots in Andijon caused the EU and the United States to begin sanctions, and the United Nations officially condemned the Andijon events, effectively ending Uzbekistan’s efforts to improve relations with the West. Uzbekistan also has drawn closer to China in the post-Soviet era, signing a series of bilateral agreements since 1996. After initially resisting, in 2001 Uzbekistan joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), signaling its need for regional assistance in fighting terrorism. In 2005 Uzbekistan began relying more heavily on its SCO links with China and Russia, ending its bilateral antiterrorism agreement with the United States and banning U.S. troops from the Karshi-Khanabad air base where they had been stationed since 2002 for operations in Afghanistan. Western criticism of the events in Andijon was the proximate reason for these moves.
Membership in International Organizations: Among the international organizations of which Uzbekistan is a member are the Asian Development Bank, Central Asian Cooperation Organization, Commonwealth of Independent States, Economic Cooperation Organization, Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Food and Agriculture Organization, GUUAM (the grouping of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova), International Atomic Energy Agency, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), International Development Association, International Finance Corporation, International Labour Organization, International Monetary Fund, International Organization for Standardization, International Telecommunication Union, Islamic Development Bank, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Partnership for Peace (of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization, United Nations, United Nations Committee on Trade and Development, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Universal Postal Union, World Customs Organization, World Federation of Trade Unions, World Health Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, and World Trade Organization (observer status).
Major International Treaties: Among the multilateral treaties to which Uzbekistan is a signatory are the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, Collective Security Treaty of the Commonwealth of Independent States (signed December 2005), Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, conventions prohibiting the development, production, stockpiling, and use of biological and chemical weapons (known respectively as the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention), Geneva Conventions, Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, including the Kyoto Protocol to that convention.