On the streets of Tashkent, there is little doubt as to who will win today’s presidential election. Residents who spoke to AFP all said they would vote for the current president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. “Nothing new can be expected from this vote,” said Rustam Usmonov, a metro programmer in the Uzbek capital. “Mirziyoyev is the only one who is active and the other candidates do not dare to criticize him,” Usmonov said.

Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, is the most populous country in Central Asia, rich in natural gas and strategically located on the border with Afghanistan. First elected in 2016, Mirziyoyev has tightened his grip on power as he strives to open up the country to foreign investment and tourism.

About 20 million Uzbeks are being called to the polls, following constitutional amendments allowing Mirziyoyev, who was already re-elected in 2021, to serve two more terms. The reforms, approved in a tightly controlled referendum earlier this year, will allow 65-year-old Mirziyoyev, who sees himself as a reformer creating a “New Uzbekistan”, to stay in power until 2037.

In Tashkent, the largest city in Central Asia, portraits of the four electoral candidates and their programs hang everywhere. But villagers said they were sure Mirziyoyev would win. Matkurban Yadgarov, a retired farmer, said he would “obviously” vote for him. “The situation is much better than with the previous president. He ended forced labor in the cotton fields,” Yadgarov said, referring to a reform often hailed as showing Mirziyoyev’s more open approach. The latter, who served as prime minister under then-President Islam Karimov, also allowed the release of political prisoners held during his predecessor’s quarter-century in power.

Despite these and other socio-economic reforms, Uzbekistan remains a tightly controlled state. NGOs claim that human rights are better than they were in Karimov’s time, but there is still a lot of room for improvement and the authorities have shown no signs of real political opposition emerging. The three candidates running against Mirziyoyev on Sunday are largely unknown and only five political parties are officially registered in the country.

Mirziyoyev’s re-election campaign focused on economics and education. He declared his goal to double the country’s gross domestic product to $160 billion in the near future. He promised more support to the families of hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks, who are going to work abroad and whose remittances will account for 11.6% of GDP in 2021, according to the World Bank.

Internet and water for everyone

In a country with a predominantly young population, Mirziyoyev has made improving education a highlight of his campaign. Lola Umirova, a 28-year-old teacher, said she hoped the president would “improve the education system”. Mirziyoyev, an agricultural engineer by training, promised internet access and clean water for all Uzbeks, half of whom live in rural areas. The country, which consists largely of desert, is at the forefront when it comes to climate change.

Mirziyoyev promised to implement a policy of opening up the country, to end the isolation it was in during the Karimov regime. But attempts to liberate the political system are timid and political alternatives are hard to come by. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the election campaign was “low-key, reflecting the lack of opposition to the incumbent party”. The re-election of the president in 2021 was also condemned by international observers as a vote without real competition.

“The incumbent president’s victory is obvious,” Uzbek political pundit Farkhod Talipov said of the vote. “All the other candidates are completely unknown and unpopular. Their candidacies are just an artificial way to show a political struggle that does not exist.”

As proof that social peace is not guaranteed, protests broke out in July 2022 over a plan to revoke self-determination from the Autonomous Region of Karakalpakistan. The unrest and subsequent repression in the impoverished northwestern region of the country caused at least 21 deaths.