ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Of all the elections in the world this year, few could be considered less free and fair than the one for the Uzbek parliament taking place on October 27.
And yet the powers that be in Central Asia's most populous country are working hard to persuade the world that this is not the case.
Alongside local elections taking place across the country, Uzbekistan's two-tier, national legislature will be elected under a newly introduced mixed system that combines majoritarian, district-level races and proportional representation for political parties.
Advocates argue that the introduction of proportional representation for half of the lower house's 150 seats -- candidates for the other 75 seats still need to be representatives of parties -- is a shot in the arm for party-building.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev, meanwhile, has predicted "strong competition" in the forthcoming ballot.
There's just one problem with that.
"All the parties competing are pocket parties," said Alisher Ilkhamov, founder of Central Asia Due Diligence, a research unit based in the United Kingdom.
"And the authorities have been trying to stop new political parties from forming," he told RFE/RL.
An 'Evolving Political Story'?
The last time Uzbeks voted for a new parliament, in 2019, coincided with a period of genuine transition.
Under Mirziyoev's leadership, the country of 35 million people was emerging from the self-imposed isolation of his late, long-ruling authoritarian predecessor, Islam Karimov.
A straitjacket economy was being opened to privatization and foreign investment, a sea change in visa policy fueled a boom in tourism, and a small but noticeable gap had emerged for independent media and critical bloggers.
The one element of the Uzbek system that had changed the least?
Politics, which, just as it was under hard-liner Karimov, remains a members-only club.
Five years since that vote, all available evidence suggests that the space for differences of opinion and critical views in Uzbekistan is once again shrinking rather than growing.
In the watchdog Reporters Without Borders' 100-point scale for media freedom, Uzbekistan has fallen to 37.27 from 46.48 since 2019, as some of those bloggers that emerged during the Mirziyoev "thaw" found themselves on the end of harsh prison sentences.
So why would the October 27 vote buck the trend?
In an optimistic opinion piece published in the Diplomat magazine earlier this month, Mirshohid Aslanov, founder of the pro-government Uzbek Center for Progressive Reforms think tank, described a "political landscape [that] is buzzing with activity."
He maintained that the upcoming elections "could signal a new chapter in the country's evolving political story."
Aslanov cited his think tank's own survey of national opinion as revealing "a population eager for change, particularly in areas such as transparency, economic reform, judicial independence, and environmental protection."
The five political parties competing in the vote are "actively seizing these sentiments as they gear up for the election," he added, "crafting messages that resonate with a public hungry for progress."
That is well and good, and reports from Tashkent suggest posters of candidates are plenty visible, with at least two famous "people's artists" running in the capital's city-council race.
But how many Uzbek voters would recognize Aslanov's description of one of the five pro-government parties competing as "doubling down on its commitment to social justice," or as "a defender of the working class and vulnerable groups?"
In fact, how many of them would recognize the Adolat Social Democratic Party at all?
At present, Adolat currently holds 24 of the 150 seats in the Uzbek parliament. The Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP) has the most with 53.
In the two-round 2014-15 parliamentary elections during Karimov's era, Adolat gained 20 seats while UzLiDeP won 52. In 2009-10 those totals were 19 and 53, respectively.
For the last 15 years, the five forces in parliament have been exactly the same with only one peculiarity.
In the two earlier elections, the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan was allocated a 15-seat quota in parliament.
For the 2019 elections, it was rebranded as a party and forced to compete for them.
Still, the result was the same -- 15 seats.
Window Closed To Critical Voices
This unbelievably consistent electoral form by the parties, combined with parliament's limited powers, might reasonably make some observers question whether this vote is worth any attention at all.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe-led monitoring mission didn't go quite as far as that in its preliminary report on the election, but it did criticize "burdensome requirements for party registration, broad legal grounds for denial of registration or suspension of party activities, and restrictions on holding assemblies."
One man who knows more about that than most is Xidirnazar Allaqulov, a vehement critic of Mirziyoev who has been trying and failing to register his would-be opposition party, the Truth, Progress and Unity Party, for several years.
During that time, Allaqulov, his relatives, and his supporters have been routinely harassed, with the former university rector alleging that he had electric shocks applied to his genitals during one police detention.
His son and fellow party activist, Sherzod, is currently in jail.
Inside parliament, criticism of Mirziyoev and other political heavyweights does not exist.
In fact, two of the only lawmakers known for their relative independence in the era that Mirziyoev calls New Uzbekistan gave up their seats.
Doniyor Ganiev, described by the private news website Gazeta.uz as "one of the few lawmakers who speaks out openly on issues important to the citizens of Uzbekistan, sometimes critically," announced that he would quit the legislature in August.
Ganiev said on Telegram that continuing in his role "will not benefit either me or the voters."
Rasul Kusherbaev, who, like Ganiev, represented UzLiDeP, made a more dramatic exit.
He called parliamentary sessions a "show" after being prevented from asking a question related to the state budget in December 2022. He quit the party but later took up a role as a government adviser.
The elections are the first under a new constitution that was passed by referendum last year, and the first since Mirziyoev secured a new presidential term in July 2023, extended from five to seven years as part of the overhaul of the basic law.
The October 27 vote will also feature the first elections to the parliament of Karakalpakstan -- a nominally autonomous republic inside Uzbekistan -- since constitution-related unrest in the region was put down with lethal force in 2022.
That crisis was, in many ways, sparked by the abject failure of political representation at multiple levels.
But signs of lessons being learned from that situation are few.
