Page 72 - bne Magazine August 2022

72 Opinion
bne August 2022
Mass demonstrations in Karakalpakstan were the first for more than decade. COMMENT
What Karakalpakstan shows us about “New Uzbekistan”
Ivan Kłyszcz in Tartu
Karakalpakstan’s dramatic protests of July 1 thrust international attention on Uzbekistan’s sole de jure autonomous territory. The publication of Tashkent’s proposed changes to the country’s constitution prompted unprecedented popular mobilisation in Nukus. These amendments would have severely diminished Karakalpakstan’s already narrow autonomy, including the symbolically important right to secede.
The protests and the ensuing crackdown left eighteen dead and over five hundred detained according to the authorities. Uzbekistan’s president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, announced after the violence that the amendments on Karakalpakstan will not go forward after all.
These events drew new attention to the ongoing process of constitutional reform initiated by Mirziyoyev. Announced in his November 9 re-election victory speech, Mirziyoyev stated that the constitutional amendments are intended to “enhance” the country’s Basic Law in the service of “New Uzbekistan”.
Up until recently, only imprecise points on the substance of the amendments were offered, such as rendering “society” the “initiator of reform”, “enhancing” the role of the mahalla
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committees (neighbourhood-level political organisations), and centering the family and “traditional human values”.
Later Mirziyoyev said that the changes are meant to render the constitution the “reliable guarantor” of the country’s development and to put human dignity “at the forefront of transformations in all areas”.
Uzbek authorities have been seeking suggestions from the public and plan to put the final version of the amendments to a referendum. Indeed, the constitutional reform commission frames the amendment process as a participatory one and not a top-down imposition.
Why is Mirziyoyev pursuing this constitutional reform now? The timing might seem off for tinkering with the constitution while several crises accumulate inside and outside Uzbekistan.
The constitutional amendments need to be understood in the broader context of Mirziyoyev’s chosen governing strategy. Drawing from the Nazarbayev example – himself inspired
by Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore – Mirziyoyev has sought to legitimise his rule through economic growth and improving