TASHKENT (Reuters) – Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has appointed his elder daughter Saida Mirziyoyeva as a presidential aide, his press service said on Friday.
The move drew ironic responses from some Uzbeks, mostly living outside Uzbekistan, while others posted on social media that her communications background could help her father promote the image of the Central Asian country. Her sister Shakhnoza is also a senior civil servant.
Mirziyoyev replaced long-serving President Islam Karimov after his death in 2016, and won re-election for seven more years last month in a vote that observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said was “technically well prepared but lacked genuine competition”.
Uzbekistan has no strong opposition politicians or groups but Mirziyoyev has styled himself as a reformer, opening its economy to the outside world and easing the authoritarian policies of his predecessor.
(Reporting by Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov; Writing by Felix Light; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
