Western observers have never deemed any Uzbek presidential or parliamentary election in the post-Soviet era to be free and fair.
"Of course not!" Students who do not wish to pick cotton could cough up 300,000 Uzbek soms to buy themselves out, the letter said.
"The fact that Karimov will remain in office for an undetermined period means the loss of even the smallest hopes for changes in the country," said Umida Niyazova, an Uzbek journalist and activist who emigrated to Berlin in 2009 after being detained for four months on charges of subversion and "religious extremism".
"Political repressions and restrictions on human rights and freedoms will increase," predicted Nadejda Atayeva, an Uzbek human rights activist who fled to France in 2000.
Last week traders from all over the world scurried there in order to do what they do best – trade 3m tonnes of Uzbek cotton (this year's spoils) while ignoring the truth: that around 1 million people, including children and young adults, were forced out into the fields and exposed to terrible conditions and in many cases intimidation and violence in order to harvest it.
He is an ethnic Uzbek, a former brutal warlord who during Afghanistan's long civil war frequently shifted sides but who was instrumental in the Taliban's downfall in 2001.
In agriculture, for example, the government tells farmers what crops they must grow and instructs them to sell the harvest back to the state for much less than the world market price.Yet since last autumn many Uzbek farmers have lost land they had worked for years.
Just 80km (50 miles) from the Uzbek border, trade is boosted by NATO's northern supply route, which arrives after snaking across the Central Asian steppe.
From Tajikistan's President Imomali Rakhmonov, with his celebration of Tajikistan's Aryan, pre-Islamic past, to Uzbekistan's adoption of Tamerlane as the nation's founder (even though he was not an Uzbek), these efforts have proved divisive.In the case of Turkmenistan, the search became a consuming malaise.
The shooting of hundreds of demonstrators in neighbouring Uzbekistan in May may have also made many people thankful for having a strong yet benign leader, at least compared to his brutal Uzbek counterpart.With re-election so comfortably assured, Mr Nazarbaev can now embark on his long-planned political reforms, which he has always said should come after economic reforms.
As wholesale trade is now restricted to firms with a minimum capital of $25,000 (a fortune by Uzbek standards) and, she says, there is no competitive local supplier, she has to travel to Kazakhstan to stock up.
