ABSTRACT
As stated in Chapter 3, Uzbekistan has had an authoritarian regime with a super-presidential government almost since independence in 1991. From that time until now, Islam Karimov (born 1938) has been president, re-elected without meaningful opposition on three occasions and likely to rule indefinitely without a constitutional replacement. Competing personalities and parties have been eliminated, exiled, or prevented from exercising any public opposition. Suspected revolutionaries have been dealt with brutally and punished, usually without a fair trial. And yet this poor record on democratic participation has not meant other human rights were always violated. There have been significant breaks where liberalization was real and improvement seemed possible. Analysis of the uneven application of authoritarian rule is the subject of this chapter.
