Downfall of Uzbek first daughter laid bare on Twitter

Moscow (AFP) - The once all-powerful eldest daughter of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, Gulnara, has suffered a spectacular fall from power in the last weeks with her reversal of fortune laid bare on Twitter.

Gulnara, who managed to combine politics with a career as a pop star, fashion designer and head of charitable funds, was a key powerbroker and seen as a potential successor to her 75-year-old father who has ruled Uzbekistan since before the fall of the USSR.

But that changed in October when Gulnara unleashed a broadside of tweets lamenting her fate and attacking enemies, showing she had fallen from her perch.

The latest twist apparently sealing her fate came on Thursday when Gulnara tweeted that police had detained several of her supporters and that she had personally gone to the police station to have them released.

Hours later she announced she was closing her Fund Forum charity, which aimed to promote Uzbek culture abroad and was seen as far more influential than the Uzbek culture ministry itself.

"I want to thank everyone for their spirit, talent, and unselfish labour," she tweeted.

Subsequently, her account vanished from the Internet.

'Eliminate an opponent'

Gulnara appears to have fallen victim to a campaign against her within the Uzbek elite, led by Uzbek security service Rustam Inoyatov, which may also have prompted her to lose her father's favour.

?What we are seeing now is that the main financial-industrial clans are joining together against Gulnara Karimova,? said Andrei Grozin, head of Central Asia studies at the CIS institute in Moscow.

?The main figures in Uzbek politics were dissatisfied with her. They saw a dangerous opponent who should be eliminated and the circumstances coincided to launch an attack against her.?

Gulnara has long embraced Twitter, tirelessly plugging the songs she performs under the name Googoosha, promoting her businesses, and posting sometimes bizarre aspects of her daily life such as pictures of herself in a sequence of yoga positions.

But it was on Twitter that she revealed in late October that her media empire ?- including the TV channels TV Markaz and Forum TV ?- was being shut down by the authorities.

In an apparent all-out crackdown on her interests, more than a dozen boutiques selling Western clothes in Tashkent, believed to belong to Gulnara or her business partners were closed down on allegations of tax evasion and other charges.

She then took aim at one of the most powerful figures in the country, the shadowy Inoyatov, whom she accused of plotting against her and seeking the presidency. Gulnara also claimed to have been the victim of poisoning attempts ?with heavy metals like mercury?.

Gulnara then renounced her presidential ambitions on Twitter, saying she wanted to be a ?painter, poet and photographer?.

And in an astonishing change of image for a woman who just months before posted pictures of herself in skimpy shorts doing contortionist yoga positions, Gulnara showed herself in a Muslim dress.

'Disappointed her father'

While Inoyatov has emerged as Karimova?s clear arch foe, it remains unclear exactly what role her father has played in her fall from grace. But in the authoritarian state, it seems impossible without his approval.

"It is possible that Karimov is disappointed in her and has decided she is not capable or loyal enough. It is possible that Inoyatov put a dossier against her on Karimov?s desk," said Grozin.

"Distrust has emerged between father and daughter and this is now being used by everyone who is against her."

Inoyatov would likely not be short of compromising information to denounce Gulnara, who has been dogged for years by allegations of money laundering in Europe that have already prompted an investigation in France.

In her Tweets, she has said enigmatically: "Papa has nothing to do with it? He is not VERY aware of what is going on."

She also wrote cryptically about her mother Tatyana Karimova: "There, on the threshold, my mother is sitting and guarding."

After her younger sister Lola Karimova Tillayeva revealed they had not spoken for 12 years, Gulnara accused her sibling of being "friends with sorcerers".