For those of you and myself, who think I’m getting too much news from Ferghana.ru lately?  Well, IWPR is gone now, as well as Mr. Saipov, what else can I do?  Little by little, our eyes and ears are closed–the voices of Uzbekistan are silenced. 

In an earlier post, I said there wasn't much news on Uzbekistan's elections.  Here's what there is, that I can find:

On October 10, opposition candidates were nominated:

All five officially registered political parties nominated their candidates for president of Uzbekistan. Dilorom Tashmuhamedova will run for presidency from the Adolat party, Ahtam Tursunov from Fidokorlar, Hoshid Dosmuhamedov from Milli Tiklanish, and Asliddin Rustamov from the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan. The Uzbek Liberal Democratic Party in its turn nominated Islam Karimov.

November 7th, Mr. Karimov made his campaign promises: he promises to run for election for an unconstitutional third term.  No need to change the constitution though: this will only be Mr. Karimov's second seven-year term, so he still qualifies.  But all sophistry aside:

Pills and Weddings:
If you want medical attention or a marriage license, you have to support Mr. Karimov's third term. 

What information Ferghana.Ru has compiled indicates that the Tashkent narcological dispensary denies health certificates to whoever applies for it (without it, registries refuse to register marriages) without the applicant's signature on the petition for Karimov's third term of office. Collectors even walk door-to-door, even though this method is recognized as more difficult. The law “On election of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan” demands signatures of at least 5% of all voters.

If only that level of effort and ingenuity was being used for building infrastructure and relationships, training doctors and farmers and schoolchildren . . . .