{"id":40049,"date":"2021-04-14T19:23:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T17:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/?p=40049"},"modified":"2021-04-15T11:57:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T09:57:26","slug":"uzbekistan-opposition-party-erk-wants-to-take-part-in-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/uzbekistan\/uzbekistan-opposition-party-erk-wants-to-take-part-in-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Uzbekistan: opposition party Erk wants to take part in presidential election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Uzbek party Erk intends to field a candidate at the presidential election this October. The opposition party was banned in the 1990s and its leader fled the country. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A version of this article was first published on Novastan’s French website<\/a> on 14 April 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition party Erk<\/a>, whose name means \u201cfreedom\u201d in Uzbek, intends to take part in Uzbekistan\u2019s presidential election in October, it said<\/a> in a statement on 5 April. The statement also condemned \u201cthe actions of the current government of Uzbekistan, which prevents the registration of newly created parties and uses violence against them, thereby violating their constitutional rights.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Want more Central Asia in your inbox? Subscribe to our newsletter here.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The party has not chosen a candidate yet. Currently in exile in Istanbul, party leader Muhammad Salih<\/a> cannot participate as he is not allowed back in Uzbekistan. The party’s statement specifies that two candidates are in the running instead: party veteran Salovat Umrzoqov and Uzbek singer-turned-politician Jahongir Otajonov. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter announced in December 2020 that he was ending his music career because it was “against Sharia law”,<\/em> as Radio Ozodlik, the Uzbek branch of the American media Radio Free Europe \/ Radio Liberty (RFE\/RL), reported at the time<\/a>. The former musician also says he has been threatened since announcing his intention to run for president, an assertion supported by CCTV footage and an RFE\/RL recording<\/a> of three unknown men warning there is a contract out to beat him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the first opposition parties<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

However, Erk’s participation is not confirmed as the authorities have to allow its registration. In fact, in the parliamentary elections<\/a> in December 2019, Erk was refused registration<\/a> and did not run. Birlik<\/a> (Unity), another opposition party, suffered the same fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview<\/a> with Current Time, a channel created by RFE\/RL and Voice of America, Salih said that, were the authorities to refuse Erk’s registration, it would belie President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s image as a reformer. “We would simply show that Mirziyoyev’s image, an image that’s still alive to the people, was always a lie,”<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erk is not a newcomer to Uzbekistan\u2019s political scene. The first non-governmental party to be registered in 1991, it took part in the first post-independence presidential election that same year, when Salih ran against the then president, Islam Karimov<\/a>. According to RFE\/RL<\/a>, observers said that about 50% of voters cast their ballot for Solih in 1991, but officially he only received 12% of the vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salih fled Uzbekistan in 1993, first to Azerbaijan and later to Turkey, where he currently lives, RFE\/RL’s Uzbek service notes<\/a>. Salih was then accused of helping plot the 1999 Tashkent bombings<\/a> and the crackdown on Erk intensified. His three brothers were arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucie Philip<\/strong>
Novastan.org<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated and edited by Valentine Baldassari<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, Telegram<\/a>, Linkedin<\/a> or Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Uzbek party Erk intends to field a candidate at the presidential election this October. The opposition party was banned in the 1990s and its leader fled the country. A version of this article was first published on Novastan’s French website on 14 April 2021. The opposition party Erk, whose name means \u201cfreedom\u201d in Uzbek, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":984,"featured_media":40054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4228,3646,3984,3974],"coauthors":[3992],"class_list":["post-40049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uzbekistan","tag-2021-uzbek-election","tag-erk","tag-politics","tag-uzbekistan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/984"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45786,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40049\/revisions\/45786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40049"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novastan.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=40049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}