By Shane Croucher There were four candidates standing in the Uzbekistan presidential elections on 29 March 2015 but they all agree on one thing: that the ruling dictator Islam Karimov should win. Karimov, 77, has been Uzbekistan’s president since 1990. Amid reports of torture, forced labour in the country’s lucrative cotton industry, violent crackdowns on dissenting activists and journalists, among other abuses, Human Rights Watch describes Uzbekistan’s record under Karimov as “atrocious”.