Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (57 page)

——————

18 * Voters had an “against all” option in all five presidential elections though, as Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had only one candidate running the choice was simply for or against the incumbent leader. This option was selected by 0.4 per cent in Uzbekistan, 1.2 in Kazakhstan, 1.7 in Turkmenistan, 3.0 in Tajikistan, 4.6 in Kyrgyzstan.

F A K I N G I T : N E O - S O V I E T E L E C T O R A L P O L I T I C S

217

he had earlier sought a term extension) and debarring his main rival,

Azezkhan Kazhegeldin, on a trumped-up misdemeanor (“administrative

crime” in Kazakhstan). Though “winning” by a landslide, Nazarbayev ob-

viously felt he had allowed too much room for opposition to develop and

with a series of amendments to the election law made it much more diffi-

cult to form a political party.19

No. of

Incumbent vote

Opposition vote*

candidates

in per cent

in per cent

Uzbekistan

2000: 2

2000: 95.7

2000: 4.3

2007: 4

2007: 90.77

2007: 9.23

Turkmenistan 2007:

6

2007: 89.23

2007: 11.77

Kazakhstan 1999:

4*

1999: 81.0

1999: 27.3

2005: 5

2005: 91.15

2005: 8.65

Kyrgyzstan 1995:

3*

1995: 72.4

1995: 26.4

2000: 6*

2000: 76.4

2000: 22.9

2005: 6*

2005: 88.9

2005: 10.2

Tajikistan 1994:

2* 1994: 59.5

1994: 34.7

1999: 2*

1999: 97.6

1999: 2.1

2006: 5

2006: 79.3

2006: 20.7

Table 3: Subsequent Presidential Elections20

In 2000, Uzbekistan saw two presidential candidates pitted against each

other in what was a badly acted theatrical performance. The incumbent,

Islam Karimov, accepted the nomination of his latest creation, the
Fido-

korlar
(Self-Sacrifice) party, and prodded a willing lackey, Abdulhafiz Jalolov, to run for the top job. Jalolov, a member of another Karimov cre-

ated party, was put in a difficult position, having to feign enough enthu-

——————

19 Article 10 of the highly restrictive “Law on Political Parties” (2002) denied registration to parties that could not muster 50,000 members representing all fourteen regions and the major cities of Kazakhstan (a minimum quota of 700 members in each region and major city was also established) (See Ó Beacháin 2005).

20 * Voters had an “against all” option. In Kazakhstan (1999) this was 1.7 per cent (not available in 2005). In Tajikistan the option was exercised by 5.8 per cent of voters in 1994 and 0.3 in 1999 but the provision was abolished for the 2006 contest). In Kyrgyzstan, the figures were 1.1 per cent (1995), 0.7 (1999), 0.9 (2005).

218

D O N N A C H A Ó B E A C H Á I N

siasm to present himself as a willing candidate but not so much that his

loyalty to the president could be seriously questioned. When asked of his

voting intentions on election day, Jalolov, most likely perplexed as to what

constituted the correct answer, let the cat out of the bag and admitted to

television viewers that he was voting for his “rival” Karimov. According to

official results—surely a fabrication—over half a million (4.3 per cent)

voted for a man who would not vote for himself.21 Interestingly, at the

time of writing the Uzbekistan election of 2000 remains a solitary example

of a two-man contest. The clearly preferred option is to allow several can-

didates to contest a presidential election (as was the case in the subsequent

Uzbek contest in 2007). Thus, rather than one candidate emerging as the

serious challenger, the vote is relatively evenly divided between the con-

tenders so that the margin between incumbent and loser is overwhelm-

ing.22

Plebiscitary Dictatorship

Despite elections being an optical illusion that should pose no threat to the

regime, Central Asian presidents have proved remarkably shy of holding

them. It is as if the mere concept of an election as a selection process could

somehow dent their efforts to be viewed as politically immortal. Through-

out the 1990s, first in Turkmenistan and then in Uzbekistan and Kazakh-

stan, presidents deferred elections by putting to the people referenda to

endorse their continued grip on power without recourse to election (see

table 4). The advantages of plebiscites over elections are obvious. Rather

than staging a process whereby actual opponents are allowed to contest or,

if not, are manufactured, the issue is distilled into being for or against the

incumbent with no alternative presented. This is in keeping with the daily

reminders that the president has,
deus ex machina
, come as a founding father, to guide the nation through the first generation of independent state-

hood. How can this living divinity be reconciled with the image of a politi-

cian battling with mere mortal mediocrities to distinguish himself? Plebi-

scites, whereby people could simply applaud the hero, rather than elec-

——————

21 The “against all” option was removed for the 2000 Uzbekistan presidential elections.

22 This was the case in the most recent presidential elections in Kazakhstan (2005), Tajikistan (2006), Turkmenistan (2007), Uzbekistan (2007) and Kyrgyzstan (2009).

F A K I N G I T : N E O - S O V I E T E L E C T O R A L P O L I T I C S

219

tions, which theoretically depicted the president as one of many potential

office aspirants, were preferable.

Stay

in

Indepen-

Prolong

Constitutional

USSR*

dence+

Presidential

changes

term

Uzbekistan 94.8 98.3

1995:

2002:

(95.6)

(94.1)

99.6 (99.3)

93.68 (91.58)

2002:

91.78 (91.58)

Turkmenistan 98.3 94.1

1994:

Not put to

(98.0)

(97.4)

99.9 (100.0)

referendum

Kazakhstan 95.6 None 1995:

1995 (i):

(88.2)

95.5 (91.2)

95.5 (91.2)

1995 (ii):

89.1 (90.6)***

Kyrgyzstan 94.5 None

None

1994: 97.0 (96.0)

(92.9)

1994: 89.0 (86.0)

1996: 98.6 (96.6)

1998: 95.4 (96.4)

2007: 76.19 (81.58)

Tajikistan

96.0

None 1999:

1994: 90.0 (n/a)

(94.0)

75.3 (91.5)**

1999: 75.3 (91.5)

2003: 96.4 (93.13)

Table 4: Referenda: Results and Turnout23

The constitutional changes that have permitted, first, term extensions, and,

then, the abolition of term limits have been done to benefit the incumbent

not his successors. Presidents in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and

Kyrgyzstan all extended terms by arguing that earlier two term limits were

part of the older constitutional order and the clock had started ticking

afresh with new basic laws. Thus, Tajik President Rakhmonov, already in

power for a dozen years by the time of the 2006 presidential contest, gave

——————

23 * Two questions in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan: the statistic cited is for the standard Kremlin-devised question. + Two questions in Turkmenistan; ** Three questions in Tajikistan, one on extending presidential term; *** New Constitution (August 1995), presidential term prolongation in April 1995.

220

D O N N A C H A Ó B E A C H Á I N

himself a new lease of political life by pushing through a 2003 referendum

allowing him to stay in office until 2020. Islam Karimovsimply ignored the

two term limit by running (after earlier extensions) for a third time in 2007.

In Turkmenistan, presidential elections were done away with all together

on the understanding that this “for life” status would only be conferred on

the first incumbent. His successors were theoretically to be bound by the

two term limit but there would be little to stop them discarding constitu-

tional niceties once the precedent had been set. In fact, there is no election

pendulum; it is the presidential life cycles and not election cycles that are

the harbingers of change. The latest to join this band was Nursultan

Nazarbayev who, having exhausted the usual tricks of extending his term

and starting afresh after a new constitution, rammed through a proposal in

2007 allowing him to contest an unlimited number of presidential contests

with the proviso that this indulgence would only apply to him and not his

successors (but, again, whether his successors will demonstrate the self-

restraint that Nazarbayev himself could not muster is uncertain). In gene-

ral, however, enthusiasm for referenda seems to have waned somewhat

since the 1990s. The preference now appears to be for making constitu-

tional changes through pliant parliaments rather than having to bother with

the exigencies of a referendum campaign.

Let’s have a Party

Considering the shared inheritance of a dominant Communist Party (CP),

it is perhaps surprising that Central Asian presidents have been slow to set

up a strong pro-government party. Instead they have based their power on

personal charisma and state coercion. The pro-presidential parties that

have been established share some characteristics with the Communist

Party during the Soviet era. Indeed, parties like the Democratic Party of

Turkmenistan and Peoples Democratic Party in Uzbekistan were simply

names applied to the Communist Party at republic level (in the former

case, the change of names took place during a lunch break).24 However,