The rise of Saida, heir to the throne of Uzbekistan

The eldest daughter of Uzbekistan's President Mirziyoyev has continued to climb the rungs of the ladder of power in recent years, reaching the highest position after her father. Confirming the ‘tradition’ of Central Asian countries.

Tashkent (AsiaNews) - The 39-year-old eldest daughter of the President of Uzbekistan, Saida Mirziyoyeva, has been in government for five years now, and in that time she has continued to climb the rungs of the ladder of power, reaching the highest position after her father Šavkat, whose advisor and first assistant she is.

She has long been considered the heir to the throne of Tashkent, although there is no shortage of other aspirants in the presidential family, considering after all that with last year's changes to the constitution, the 67-year-old Mirziyoyev could remain in the seat for another 14 years, surpassing the quarter-century mark after the first election in 2016.

Saida is the first of three children, and in April 2019 she took up the post of deputy director of the Agency for Information and Mass Communications, a role that immediately placed her among the presidency's key assets.

Although she had kept her distance from politics until then, she was officially proclaimed her father's first assistant as early as 2023, ‘a dizzying political take-off’, as the well-known Uzbek journalist Džakhongir Mukhammad comments, ‘an unknown person suddenly becoming the country's second authority’.

Since then, his presence on the public scene has become constant and increasingly conspicuous, with meetings at the highest level and reception of foreign delegations, visits to regions and representation of Uzbekistan abroad. Last month, Saida travelled to neighbouring Kazakhstan, meeting with President Kasym-Žomart Tokaev on the eve of his father's official visit to Astana.

The example of the Central Asian countries is very evident, starting with Turkmenistan's presidential tandem of the Berdymukhamedov father and son, Gurbanguly and Serdar, and Tajikistan's president, Emomali Rakhmon, also seems to be on the same path with his son Rustam Emomali.

The family lineage of power provides protection for all clan members, many of whom have amassed large fortunes in recent years. ‘Uzbekistan is a dictatorship, in which the first family controls the government and the entire country,’ says former diplomat Ališer Taksanov on Radio Azattyk, considering that “almost all of Mirziyoyev's relatives are in power”, including in the secret services and the business world.

The latest confirmation in recent days is the appointment of the president's brother-in-law, Otabek Umarov, husband of his youngest daughter Šakhnoza, as vice-president of the Olympic Committee for Central Asia at the 44th assembly in New Delhi, an open-ended appointment with very broad competences, also involving Iran and Afghanistan.

The leader of the Paris-based association ‘Human Rights in Central Asia’, Uzbek Nadežda Ataeva, believes that Saida Mirziyoyeva's activity is currently a ‘preparation for assuming the presidential role’, and at every public meeting the daughter and heir appears more and more confident, it is ‘a kind of study course for career moves’.

According to Ališer Ilkhomov, head of the Central Asia Due Diligence in London, 40-year-old Umarov could, however, contend with Saida for the supreme chair, as he too is accumulating positions, as he is also vice-president of the National Security Service.

Otabek accompanies the president on all his travels and is his main bodyguard, drawing from this role ‘access to enormous levers of influence’, Ilkhomov assures. Thanks to family connections, he has accumulated great wealth and is considered the mediator between the political and economic spheres of the country, manoeuvring ‘from behind the scenes’.

Therefore an underground competition is underway between the two suitors, which would be highlighted by the clash with another 40-year-old, Komil Allamžonov, an exponent of the Information Council very close to the president's daughter, who accused Umarov of undue interference in the Uzbek business world.

Saida can also count on the protection of her father-in-law, the 72-year-old General Batyr Tursunov, father of her husband and businessman Ojbek and first vice-president of the Security Council, from which he supervises his young colleague Umarov, in a power game all within the presidential family.