Uzbek President Karimov in critical condition

The cabinet in Tashkent informed the country of the 78-year-old leader's failing health on Friday.

"Dear compatriots, it is with a very heavy heart that we inform you that yesterday the condition of our president deteriorated sharply and, according to doctors, it is evaluated as critical," said the statement posted on the government website on Friday.

Uzbek news website Gazeta and Russian news agency RIA also published reports with the same statement.

Speculations regarding Karimov have been rampant since last Sunday, when he was hospitalized and opposition-controlled media outside the country claimed the president had already died. On Monday, however, Karimov's youngest daughter, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, announced on social media that her father's condition had improved and that he had been placed under intensive care after a cerebral hemorrhage.

On Thursday, opposition outlet Fergana said that Karimov's funeral was being planned in his hometown, Samarkand, where part of the city center was being cordoned off.

It is still unclear who will succeed Karimov when he dies. Frontrunners for his position include Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev and his deputy Rustam Azimov. Karimov's elder daughter, Gulnara, was initially being seen as a potential successor but is out of the reckoning after being placed under house arrest in 2014 following a family feud. Gulnara accused her father of being like Stalin and accused her mother and sister of sorcery.

Born in 1938, Karimov was raised in an orphanage in Samarkand. He studied mechanical engineering and economics before becoming the regional communist leader under the Soviet Union in 1989. He became president in 1991, after the collapse of the Iron Curtain.

Karimov's regime has been repeatedly accused of violating human rights, including torture and forced labor in the country's cotton industry. In 2005, the authorities were accused of killing hundreds of protesters in Andijan, in Uzbekistan's east.

mg/sms (Reuters, AFP)