Uzbekistan, as far as I know, has no official national motto, but the phrase you hear most often when officials describe the country's relationship to democracy is "step by step." In the almost 18 years since the country became independent with the breakup of the Soviet Union, "step by step" has sometimes been translated as "one step forward, two steps back."
Over the past years, elections have been held, parties have emerged, and foreign observers have taken note. But some of the country's potentially most popular "public movements" which arose in the late '80s and early '90s never received official status, so their vote-getting ability as political parties was never tested. At the same time, concerns about the rise of political Islam made Uzbek authorities wary of instability and worse spreading across borders with neighbors like Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
Is Uzbekistan further along the road to democracy than it was in late 1991, when the hammer and sickle came down and the crescent and stars went up? Probably, but largely in an institutional sense rather than a mass democratic one.
I'm not a frequent flier to Uzbekistan, but I have been to Tashkent twice now in as many months. In July, it was a conference on responses to the international financial crisis. Last week it was to compare experiences on political parties and parliamentary elections. Uzbekistan has scheduled elections to its Oliy Majlis or Parliament for December 27.
With the cooperation of the OSCE's Democratization and Rule of Law program, Regional Dialogue (Slovenia), and the US National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Academy of State and Social Construction (ASSC) convened a two-day program on September 29-30. Election experts and Central Asia analysts from a number of OSCE member states, plus Asian neighbors from as far away as Japan and India shared their observations on organizing elections.
Uzbek officials from the Central Election Commission and from a variety of government think tanks outlined Uzbekistan's preparations for the elections, which included a rather impressive study of international best practice in a number of areas. Uzbekistan, noting that other countries have set quotas for the representation of women in national parliaments, has maintained its 30 percent figure, but has put the onus on the political parties to implement the recruitment of female candidates.
A more unusual quota has emerged: 15 seats in the new parliament will be reserved for the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan, not a political party as such. Though this development should give an impetus to the country's efforts to confront grave environmental problems such as the drying up of the Aral Sea, the move was not without its critics among the international observers. Why limit Uzbek greens to 15 seats? Other than their ostensibly "green" approach to environmental issues, where do they stand on, say, human rights, or Uzbek foreign policy? Questions that remain unanswered, but worth tracking once the new Majlis starts legislating in the new year.
Worthwhile as it usually is to expose Uzbek officials to (mildly) critical observation by international
experts, the amount of "apparatchik speak" in evidence was still quite high. Sometimes a Western skeptic might ask a party official for his campaign slogan or theme to rally popular support, only to be answered with a timid observation on the need to increase tourism into this distant Central Asian state. Not the stuff of rousing stump speeches, but a safe bet in a country where being outspoken is still a risky proposition.
By the looks of things, the elected officials around the conference table seemed more at ease in expressing opinions than their party chiefs. I have a feeling that they have gotten beyond the stage where - according to Dilip Hiro in his new book Inside Central Asia - Uzbek parliamentarians in the early Nineties "had taken to reciting poems honoring [the president] in the chamber."
"Democracy is not a state, it is a process," said one of the Uzbek participants, and I couldn't agree more. Democracy can be won - hard won - and then lost, if its beneficiaries cease to defend it. This holds for countries with long democratic traditions, and highlights how difficult the democracy-building process is for countries with no such tradition. At least by creating the institutions associated with democracy - representative assemblies, political parties, elections - Uzbekistan is further along than certain countries (among them some of the West's "best friends") which have yet to even acknowledge the need for such institutions.
"Step by step" - neither giant steps nor great leaps forward - is at least movement in the right direction. While the conference was still in session, Uzbekistan submitted its formal invitation to the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to observe the December elections.
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(Photos: top left - former madrassa now an artisans' colony; bottom right - Amir Timur (Tamerlane) Museum)