A week or so before the alleged heart attack, Gulnara spoke to Celebrity Scene News, a publicity mill run by American TV producer Pete Allman, whose ample mane appears to have been blow-dried by an idling jet engine.
In the video interview, Allman says, "I see how good you are for your country. This is why I ask you how would you feel if you were president of Uzbekistan?" Unlike the little girl from the old Soviet joke about Brezhnev, Gulnara doesn't admit to dreaming of running the country. But she doesn't rule it out either. "Well, I probably won't be able to answer this question before I try it," she says. "I'm comfortable where I am right now. I'm a person who doesn't really take steps before there's an assurance to be able to do a certain project." Analysts are generally split on her true intentions, and there are other people in Karimov's entourage who might be tapped to replace him. Some in Uzbekistan talk about a "Putin scenario," a reference to a shaky Boris Yeltsin handpicking a successor with one overriding criterion: security for himself and his family.
So if not Gulnara, who? Karimov's long-serving prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyaev is sometimes mentioned as a possible contender for the throne, as is his deputy Rustam Azimov, who's in charge of the financial sector. In a rarely seen spat at the top of Uzbekistan's political elite, Gulnara recently accused Azimov of corruption in a public and unceremonious way. The allegations sound particularly rich coming from a woman widely believed to have parlayed her own illustrious pedigree into spectacular wealth. The spat may indicate the beginnings of a pre-succession scramble, or it may simply be a clash of business interests. There surely are other candidates for the top post whose names aren't yet publicly known. The National Security Service, whose influence has ballooned since Andijan, must be particularly keen to field its own man in the contest for the Uzbek throne.
One thing we can be certain of is that the next leader of the country is unlikely to come from outside the regime. Unfortunately for the people of Uzbekistan, the story of the Uzbek opposition is one of squabbling, insignificance, and irrelevance -- and sometimes of outright farce. Through intimidation, arrests, harassment, and occasional murders, the regime henchmen of course made sure things would be this way -- witness the bullying of Sanjar Umarov, a prominent Uzbek businessman. When Umarov evinced political ambition, the regime accused him of a litany of economic crimes and packed him off to prison for 14 years. Partly under American pressure, he was released early and has since been living in exile in the United States. Umarov's political demise is significant because he could have been an attractive proposition for Uzbekistan's business elites and the secular middle class many of whose members quietly detest the Karimov regime. By snipping Umarov's ambitions before he could garner any sizable national following, Karimov sent a clear signal to those elites. More ominously, several anti-regime activists have been assassinated abroad in murky circumstances. The opposition has also had its share of self-inflicted wounds stemming from isolation, competing ideologies, and an exaggerated sense of self-worth, all amplified by frustration at being marginalized in Uzbekistan.
Nobody personifies the listless state of the anti-Karimov opposition better than Solih, the purveyor of the hear-attack rumor, who has lived in exile for more than two decades and waded deep into Islamist waters. Wanted on trumped-up terrorism charges in Uzbekistan, Solih has publicly sparred with other anti-Karimov activists, most of them also scattered abroad and lacking any meaningful political toehold inside Uzbekistan.
The murky upcoming transition in Uzbekistan may not be a daily presence in international headlines, but it's no doubt being closely watched in both Washington and Moscow. Over the past few years, the geopolitical situation around Uzbekistan has played into Karimov's hands. Washington reprimanded him for Andijan, but quickly sought to win back his favor to assure support for the Afghanistan war. Uzbek territory has been crucial for the trans-shipment of goods to the U.S. troops there, and Uzbekistan will play a major logistical role during the looming withdrawal of U.S. forces. So there's an immediate tactical interest for Washington in maintaining the status quo, however ugly, inside Uzbekistan. Karimov has proven adept at playing the United States and Russia against each other, and exploiting their regional rivalries. Karimov must be even more paranoid about succession than he was a few years ago when the so-called color revolutions upended the placid post-Soviet political space. The more recent, and much more violent, Arab Spring must have made him even more careful about planning for life after office, if there's such a thing. And despite some analysts claiming to know what he's planning to do, only Karimov really knows, and we are left to parse the symbolism of a heart attack that may or may not have occurred.
A line from his daughter's poetry says it best: "If our thought was all transparent and clear and indefeasible despite subjective ways... Then we might call our life quite simple and pay no heed to small destructive symbols."
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