Elections for the lower house of the parliament are being held in Uzbekistan, RIA Novosti reported. Polling stations will be open from 08:00 to 20:00.
Only officially registered parties can nominate candidates for deputies, today there are five of them: the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of the Peoples, the Democratic Party "National Revival", the Social Democratic Party “Justice” and the Environmental Party. They registered 375 candidates for single-member constituencies and 500 candidates for party lists.
The programs of all parties support the government's course and are aimed at domestic political issues. About 20 million people are registered in the unified electronic voter list. There are about two million of them outside the country, including about a million in Russia.
For the election to be valid, 33% of registered voters must vote.
About 11,000 polling stations have been established, 56 of which are in 39 countries, including seven in Russia.
These are the seventh parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan since the country's independence. In 2005, a bicameral parliament was established in the republic. However, for the first time, MPs will be elected for a new five-year term under a mixed majoritarian-proportional model: out of 150 seats in the lower house, 75 MPs will be elected in single-member constituencies, the remaining 75 in a single constituency based on votes cast for political parties . The candidates receiving the most votes will be considered elected in single-member constituencies; parties must receive at least 7% of the vote.
The elections will be monitored by almost 70 thousand local observers and about a thousand foreign observers from nearly 20 different organizations
Election security will be provided by the National Guard, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Guard of Uzbekistan. The CEC promises to publish the preliminary results on Monday, October 28.