Central Asia - General Discussion Thread

Well, well. At the time of the previous post , Turkmenistan had literally every seat of the legislature filled by its ruling party. Now we have an official opposition party and an elected seat for it. Link here.

"Official opposition party" is a bit of a giveaway here.

Many times, authoritarian countries allow opposition parties to exist that 1) have no real popular support, 2) follow closely the priorities of the ruling party, and 3) are often controlled by people associated with the administration in power. This allows them to say "See, we're a democracy!" to outside groups while not having to face the threat of actually losing control. This can be taken to rather ludicrous extremes: I remember in the 1990s, the person running against Uzbek president Islam Karimov in the presidential race publicly said he was going to vote for Karimov in the election.

Some information about the new party. Yeah. If Turkmenistan allows for a popularly-supported opposition party to run for office and win seats, then I'll pay attention. Until then, color me unimpressed.

edited 23rd Jun '13 12:14:38 AM by BokhuraBurnes

I agree that this is the smallest gesture towards democracy that Berdymukhammedov (copy-paste function I love you :) ) could do. But it's an interesting one in that it hints at the government being under pressure to do this when, for example, China are staying rigidly with their one-party system. They could have said the one-party system is fine, democracy is foreign and alien to our culture etc. etc.

edited 23rd Jun '13 1:55:48 AM by betaalpha

I'd be interested in finding out who exactly is putting on that pressure. None of the usual suspects in such situations seem to really figure in Turkmenistan.

edited 23rd Jun '13 10:53:21 AM by FFShinra

China does allow seats to subordinate parties, though it is rigidly one-party. Turkmenistan had its Democratic Party the only legal party with 125/125 seats in the Mejlis (the Assembly) - no exceptions. That's what I meant when I said "more clamped down than the others". Now at least that no longer seems to be the case.

Ahhh, I didn't know that. Though that sounds like it's effectively multi-party, because it tolerates the existence of other parties enough to allow them to be in parliament.

(Edit) Just read Wikipedia's Single Party State page. Yup, it can still be considered a single-party state if like China it only tolerates allied, subordinate parties to exist.

edited 23rd Jun '13 3:25:40 PM by betaalpha

Meet the new awesomely megalomaniac Turkmen dictator, same as the old awesomely megalomaniac Turkmen dicatator?

Sheesh, Berdy. I'm actually a little impressed, as I was with his predecessor's shenanigans.

I wonder, has anyone 'shopped the statue to depict Berdymkuhammedov falling off the horse yet?

edited 4th Jun '15 3:30:02 AM by betaalpha

Uzbekistan banned the teaching of political science, on the grounds that it is a western pseudo-science that does not take the “Uzbek model” of development into account.

He's doing that to ensure closer ties to Putin and to maintain his position of power (which has been going since 1990, when it was still part of the USSR).

edited 5th Sep '15 7:32:44 PM by Quag15

This doesn't have much to do with Putin, who Karimov alternately likes to get close to and hold at arm's distance in order to obtain greater leverage. (Notice that Uzbekistan has not joined the Eurasian Economic Union, for example). Instead, it's just a means of cracking down on anything that might serve as a source of criticism towards Karimov's dictatorship.

Fair point.

Daughter of Kazakhstan’s President Appointed Deputy Prime Minister

Don't you just love some good old-fashioned nepotism? And it's not the first time, either.

edited 14th Sep '15 8:26:24 PM by Quag15

President Karimov of Uzbekistan has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke and/or a brain hemorrhage.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/asia/islam-karimov-uzbekistan-leader-stroke/index.html

Man is a bastard but I'm worried about the power vaccum.

edited 31st Aug '16 7:24:34 AM by Rationalinsanity

Had forgotten we had a thread. Was going to post this yesterday.

I'm worried, but at the same time hopeful. If Karimov doesn't pull through, perhaps Uzbekistan no longer has to be the mercurial rash of the region.

On the other hand, Uzbekistan has a beef with just about everyone in the region except Turkmenistan...

And Now For Something Completely Different - a photo article of Central Asian wildlife and nature.

Meet the original migrants of Central Asia

A few of those are from China, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Central Asia (China and Mongolia are East Asia, while Afghanistan and Pakistan are South Asia).

edited 1st Sep '16 4:25:19 PM by Bat178

It seems Karimov is now Schrodinger's Dictator. Some people think he's dead, others think he's alive.

Isn't that also the current status of the president of Algeria?

How many dictators are in the box at this point?

Real life examples of Dark Lord on Life Support? Huh.

They are at different degrees though. In Boutaflika's case, its more the case of him being an invalid whose living status is allowing the status quo to remain. In Karimov's case, its an honest question...some people think he is dead and the regime is hiding that fact until they can determine a successor or if he is alive and merely an invalid.

Like Salazar in his final days, in a certain way?

edited 1st Sep '16 6:53:06 PM by Quag15

Exactly so. Whereas Karimov is increasingly aping Franco.

Unconfirmed news reports mentioned that Karimov has bought the farm.

No longer unconfirmed. Government has now said he is dead.