 The party was led by President Islam Karimov since its foundation until 1996, at which point Karimov stepped down and resigned his membership.Karimov created the Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party in 2003, and despite self-identifying with different ideologies, the parties are widely seen no different from each other, with the Liberal Democratic Party being created to give an illusion of a competitive multi-party system.This is supported by the fact that the PDP has remained supportive of Karimov's policies and retained his favor.