When Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev dismissed Tashkent mayor Jahongir Artikhodjaev earlier this month, the proximate trigger was the miserable struggling of the Uzbek capital’s electrical energy grid amid a chilly snap and ongoing fuel shortages. In dismissing Artikhodjaev, amongst a number of different metropolis officers, Mirziyoyev cited a “lack of preparation for the winter season.”
Final winter, in late January 2022, a massive blackout plunged a lot of southern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan into darkness. Though such a widespread multinational blackout has been averted up to now this yr, all of Central Asia has struggled this winter. A current article for RFE/RL by Chris Rickleton summed the sentiment up effectively within the title: “Another Cold, Dark Winter That Central Asia Will Not Forget.”
In Uzbekistan, Artikhodjaev seems to be on monitor as a chief scapegoat. Mirziyoyev ordered the State Safety Service and prosecutors workplace to analyze him and the opposite dismissed officers. Following his dismissal from the mayor submit, Artikhodjaev retained essential positions within the metropolis council and senate – and the immunity from prosecution that went with them. However this week he resigned early from these positions; his exit from the senate was confirmed in a January 30 decree from the Central Election Fee.
Artikhodjaev could also be a political casualty of the area’s vitality woes, however the shortages which have left individuals in Tashkent shivering is way extra severe than a political scandal. The repercussions of the obvious vulnerabilities in Uzbekistan’s vitality system have large implications, none extra severe than for Afghanistan.
As RFE/RL’s Abubakar Siddique reported just lately, “The crippling power outages [in Afghanistan] have coincided with a severe cold snap that has led to the deaths of at least 160 people and the hospitalization of hundreds of others, including children.” The facility outages, paired with extreme chilly, additionally cruelly mix with Afghan’s financial troubles. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimated that “Ninety-seven percent of Afghanistan’s population is at risk of poverty” in 2023. “Already, 91% of the average Afghan household’s money is spent on food, forcing many families to resort to rationing and other coping strategies,” IRC acknowledged in a current report. That leaves few funds for purchasing coal or wooden to remain heat.
On January 14, Uzbekistan as soon as once more suspended electrical energy exports to Afghanistan, regardless of contracts in place, “in order to provide [its own] population with stable electricity during these cold days.”
This adopted complaints in mid-December from Taliban officers who accused Uzbekistan of reducing off provides. Uzbek officers pushed again, stating that provides had been decreased however not lower off.
The Taliban’s Performing Power and Water Minister Mullah Abdul Latif Mansour traveled to Tashkent on January 1 and left with a brand new deal: Uzbekistan would reportedly provide Afghanistan with 450 megawatts of electrical energy throughout the winter.
However two weeks later, with Tashkent experiencing excessive chilly and outages even within the capital metropolis, Uzbekistan lower off exports to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan imports greater than 70 p.c of its electrical energy from neighboring nations Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. A 2013 energy sector assessment from the Asian Improvement Financial institution generated along side a power transmission project acknowledged that: “Currently, 73% of Afghan power supply is imported – 22% from Iran, 4% from Tajikistan, 17% from Turkmenistan, and 57% from Uzbekistan.” Even when there was some shifting in that steadiness, Uzbekistan is probably going nonetheless an important supply of electrical energy for Afghanistan.
As analyst Mohsin Amin tweeted nearly three years ago: “The electricity-exporting countries Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Iran mostly sell their surplus electricity to Afghanistan. When they no longer have a surplus, they stop supplying.” This stays true.
In an English-language article concerning the resumption of electrical energy exports to Afghanistan, Kun.uz concluded by noting that the Uzbek Power Ministry had “stressed that electricity produced in Uzbekistan and intended for domestic consumption is not exported.”
It then completed with this paragraph that means the strains of discontent in Uzbekistan about exporting any electrical energy:
Nonetheless, it must be famous that folks all through Uzbekistan are going through extreme energy outages. The federal government even launched deliberate energy cuts. Residents of Tashkent, the capital metropolis, have complained about fixed electrical energy disruptions, low fuel strain and malfunctions within the central heating system. The state of affairs in provinces is way worse. Regardless of all the issues with electrical energy and fuel provide, Uzbekistan nonetheless continues promoting its fuel to China and electrical energy to Afghanistan, abandoning social amenities and leaving individuals to endure chilly in these excessive climate circumstances.
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