Parliamentary and local elections to take place in Uzbekistan

Baku. 21 December. REPORT.AZ/ An election campaign to the lower /legislative/ chamber of the Uzbek parliament and a series of elections to local government bodies that kicked off on September 15 will be over on Sunday when 20.8 million Uzbek citizens come to polling stations to elect those who will represent their interests at all levels of power in the next five years.

A CIS monitoring mission wrote in its interim report that “technically everything is ready for voting.”

“The fact that many international observers have wished to monitor the 2014 elections indicate the world’s growing interest in Uzbekistan and the country’s growing international authority,” Sergei Lebedev, the CIS executive secretary and the CIS mission,” said in an interview with the local media.

“This year, the CIS observer mission consisted of 76 people representing eight CIS countries and the CIS Executive Committee. They include the heads and members of Central Electoral Commissions, parliamentarians, diplomats, members of government and representatives of various political parties who have vast experience in assessing election’s results. I am sure that the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan will pass at a high level,” Lebedev stressed.

Today’s parliamentary elections should be regarded as a starting point for another vital political event in Uzbekistan’s political life - the presidential elections. Under Uzbek laws, they should take place not later than 90 days after the parliamentary polls. The presidential term of Uzbekistan’s incumbent president, Islam Karimov, was supposed to have expired late in 2014. His term, however, was extended for another 18 months after amendments had been made to a law on elections to representative bodies of state power and the president of the Republic of Uzbekistan, informs Report citing TASS.