Uzbeks cynical of election marred by apathy

By Maria Golovnina

TASHKENT (Reuters) - Azimzhan, his face weathered after years of making bread in a traditional Uzbek bakery, broke into laughter when asked about Sunday's presidential election.

"Obviously I will vote because that's what everyone will do. My family will vote, my neighbors will vote," he said in his dimly lit mudbrick shop in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

"But it will not change anything. It's just another thing we have to do," he added, the fire from the tandyr oven flickering in his eyes.

President Islam Karimov, in power since 1989, is all but certain to extend his long reign in the Sunday election in which he faces three friendly rivals.

He tolerates little dissent in his former Soviet country and public criticism of him is taboo.

The broad streets of central Tashkent, a mixture of Soviet-era buildings and Uzbek houses adorned with traditional Islamic patterns, have been devoid of almost all forms of campaigning in the run-up to the vote.

On the eve of the election, most people polled by Reuters shied away from any talk about the election.

But in the maze of the old city's narrow dusty streets, lined with clay houses, mosques and craftsman shops like Azimzhan's bakery, Uzbeks were more talkative, though keen to stay out of politics.

"If I can feed my family I am ok with that. I don't want anything else," said one man who asked to be called Mahmud.

The country has never held an election deemed free and fair by Western monitors but Karimov has promised a transparent vote and more democracy and reform if re-elected. This year, as previously, the European monitoring team will be very small.

"We have done everything to ensure the openness and fairness of the election," Central Election Commission Chairman Mirzoulugbek Abdusalomov said on Friday.

Azimzhan, who would not give a surname, said he sends most of the money he earns back home to his native Andizhan -- a city which jumped into the centre of global attention in 2005 when troops opened fire on a protest there.

Azimzhan turned away when asked about the Andizhan events, his facial expression alternating between anger and fear.

Witnesses said in 2005 that hundreds of ordinary people were killed in Andizhan. The government has put the death toll at 187, saying most of them were terrorists or security forces.

APATHY