Kira Shamsutdinova
In January 2026, Uzbekistan carried out its largest-ever decentralization experiment, issuing a presidential decree that transferred some of the responsibilities of national ministries to local administrations in 45 regions and municipalities. Local officials now had the right to approve staffing schemes, hire and fire staff members, and administer their own offices. At first sight, it is a very bold step towards decentralization.
At second sight, it is yet another step in the 10-year process of decentralization reforms that have always broadened the scope of responsibilities of local authorities without ever changing to whom they answer.
Delegating power to local authorities has been among the priorities of the country since the election of President Mirziyoyev in 2016. Budget revenues of local authorities increased greatly, numerous responsibilities were delegated from ministries to local agencies, and the 2023 constitutional amendment introduced a new system of separation of executive and representative powers at the local level. A 2025 policy brief from Westminster International University in Tashkent describes the constitutional amendments as creating “an unprecedented opportunity for decentralization and increased municipal autonomy.” The reform agenda, aligned with the Uzbekistan-2030 strategy, is real and substantive.
However, the memo highlights the key contradiction that the reform has yet to resolve: whether the local government should act as an administrative body representing the interests of its citizens or as a tool for implementing state policies. Ten years into the reforms of Mirziyoyev, the answer is clear – the latter.
There are obvious structural reasons for that. According to Freedom House’s 2024 Nations in Transit report, the head of the local executive authorities, also known as a hokim, is appointed by the president, rather than elected by the people he/she is meant to represent. The regional hokim is nominated by the president and then approved by the local council; if the nomination is rejected three times, the president may appoint an acting hokim and disband the local council.
The district hokim is appointed by the regional hokim. Almost all the regional hokims also function as senators. As noted by Freedom House, “the local governments are more accountable to the president than local populations.”
That’s how specialists refer to deconcentration as opposed to decentralization. As CABAR.asia analysis explained back in 2021, “The process of gradual and careful implementation of administrative and financial decentralization continues in Uzbekistan, but nothing changes on the question of political decentralization.” The powers are transferred not to citizens or independent local councils, but to the local hokim. The number of regions that depend on financial assistance from the central budget to cover their expenses rose from seven in 2018 to 11 in 2021.
As noted by Mirziyoyev in 2021, “the time has not yet come when citizens will vote for hokims.” Even five years later, the upcoming elections in 2026 will be held for the deputies to the councils (kengashes) — and not for the election of hokims. Thus, citizens will decide who will sit at their local councils, but will not have an opportunity to elect regional or district governors. This difference is very important: the council, which may be dissolved after three rejections of the presidential nominee, is not a balance of powers, but just a formality.
The WIUT policy brief takes inspiration from the experience of Poland, Hungary and Türkiye in order to prove that true decentralization should lead to the transformation of local Kengashes into municipalities, institutions representing local communities, rather than enforcing national policies.
Indeed, while in Poland Soviet-era councils of local people were dissolved in 1989 and replaced by independent municipalities, in Uzbekistan Kengashes are defined as “representative state bodies” rather than as municipalities. Only mahalla, which is a neighbourhood-level organization, is legally recognized as an independent entity, and even mahallas lack finances for independent action.
All of this does not mean, however, that reforms do not have their positive side. Budgetary autonomy, additional fiscal transfers, administrative simplification, and dissociation of hokim from the Kengash chairman position are all valuable changes indeed. 2026 initiative in 45 districts is the most practical step to date. Still, administrative efficiency and accountability are different concepts. Effective local government reporting to Tashkent provides better quality of services but not of self-government.
Uzbekistan is at a genuinely consequential moment. The constitutional framework has created the legal space for a real transformation of local governance. International experience, reviewed in detail by WIUT’s researchers, shows that this transformation is achievable, and that delaying it or implementing only partial measures introduces systemic risks, particularly as the separation of executive and representative functions disrupts the previously stable balance of local power.
The question is whether the political will exists to move from deconcentration to genuine devolution: to make hokims accountable not to the president who appoints them, but to the citizens who live under them.
Kira Shamsutdinova researches post-communist transitions, soft power, and urban governance in Central Asia.