Uzbeks set to return Karimov amid criticism of election

UZBEKISTAN:President Islam Karimov promised to bring peace and prosperity to impoverished, isolated Uzbekistan yesterday, as the Central Asian state held an election that seemed certain to hand him another seven years in power.

Mr Karimov has ruled Uzbekistan since 1989, gradually crushing opposition parties, rights groups and independent media, while failing to raise living standards in a country with large gas reserves, a massive cotton industry and huge "Silk Route" tourist potential.

Official turnout was over 90 per cent. Uzbekistan has never been deemed to have held a fair national ballot by western monitors and, in 2000, Mr Karimov won an election with what he said was 92 per cent of votes.

Human rights activists and journalists reported cases of multiple voting across Uzbekistan and officials putting pressure on people at polling stations to back Mr Karimov, who was lavishly praised on state television during voting hours.

Mr Karimov (69) has resisted reforms and brought Uzbekistan's economy close to collapse, plunging most of its 27 million people into poverty. More than three million Uzbeks have left for Russia and Kazakhstan in recent years, most to menial jobs with meagre pay.

However, the president's stranglehold over all spheres of Uzbek life, and the notoriety of his vast secret police network, ensure dissent is rarely heard.

"I believe people know what they are voting for - for tomorrow, for peace in our country, for our country's development and prosperity," Mr Karimov said yesterday.

Human rights groups regularly accuse Mr Karimov of presiding over a regime that uses abduction, torture and murder as tools to silence critics. He was courted by the West after September 11th, 2001, when US forces used an Uzbek airbase to launch attacks on the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

They were kicked out in late 2005, however, after Washington criticised Mr Karimov over an alleged army massacre of hundreds of anti-government protesters in the city of Andizhan, in unrest he blamed on Islamic militants.

"The outcome of this vote is predetermined," said Surat Ikramov, one of the few human rights activists still at liberty in Uzbekistan. Shafoat (21), a nurse in the capital, Tashkent, appeared to speak for many Uzbeks when he said: "We already know the result, so it doesn't matter who we vote for."