The death of Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov has left a power vacuum in the country's elite. (c) Umida Akhmedova / AP / Press Association Images. All rights reserved.
This article originally appeared in Fergana News. We are grateful for permission to translate and repost it here.
Under Article 96 of Uzbekistan’s constitution, if the president dies or is unable to carry out his duties, the chair of the senate, the upper house of the country’s parliament, should become interim president until a new election is held. But Nigmatulla Yuldashev, Uzbekistan’s current senate chair, is a rather obscure politician who, pleading lack of governmental experience, has refused to accept his nomination. This didn’t bother Uzbekistan’s parliamentarians in the least — they immediately cracked the problem of legitimising the PM as interim president.
