Uzbekistan’s president abolished slave labour. What next?
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s reforms are at risk of losing momentum
THE SCREENS of the digital billboards illuminating the streets of Tashkent flip between the faces of politicians who are running in a presidential election on October 24th. Shop windows display posters of the five candidates lined up side by side. Newspapers plastered in press kiosks grant equal space to all contenders. Uzbekistan is engaged in a scrupulous attempt to show one-person, one-vote democracy at work in a competitive election. But in truth there is only one man, and that is the president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is guaranteed to win with a thumping landslide. He may well improve on the 89% of the vote he won five years ago.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “From gulag to ordinary grumbles”
Asia October 23rd 2021
From the October 23rd 2021 edition
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