As could be expected, the status of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov is plunged in mystery amid rival accounts of whether or not he is dead.
Moscow-based ferghana.ru reported overnight that Karimov had finally succumbed to the results of a brain hemorrhage on August 29 at 3:35 pm Tashkent time.
The presidential administration in Tashkent has staunchly denied this, however.
RIA Novosti cited a source in the administration as saying Karimov was in a stable condition.
As befits a deeply secretive, authoritarian nation, these claims and counterclaims were provided under a strict cloak of anonymity.
The drawback of combining large security apparatuses and secrecy, as Uzbekistan is now illustrating, is that information has a habit of leaking out, but in sometimes contradictory ways.
Also in the realm of unverifiable rumor is the news that deputy prime minister Rustam Azimov, believed to be a leading contender for succession, has been placed under house arrest. Confirmation of that event would signal that the widely advertised for jostling had indeed started. Since the arrest could only have occurred at the instigation of the National Security Committee, by far the country’s most powerful state body, the bets might appear to have been made.
The thinking still appears to be that the authorities will wait until after September 1, independence day, before shedding some light on what is happening, but events could well speed up the plan.
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