On November 23, 2019, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) mission visited Uzbekistan to monitor the elections on 22 December.

The mission is headed by Kaetana De Zulueta Outram(from Italy). The mission consists of the experts on political, election, legal and mass media issues.

The international observers delegation also met with the heads of the Central Election Commission.

During the meeting, special attention was paid to the recently renewed electoral legislation that meets international standards and positive foreign practice. As the chairman of the Central Election Commission M. Abdusalomov noted that the adoption of modern information and communication technologies to the electoral process are very important on further improvement of the election commissions works. In addition, this year, for the first time in the history of our country, a comprehensive legislative framework - the Election Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan - has been developed and adopted, and this important document has been analyzed by more than 50 countries and international organizations.

In particular, a single electronic list of voters has been formed in the country. A SYAER-based Election Management Information System has been introduced. It covers a range of tasks. In particular, this system allows the distribution of citizens to precinct election commissions, information about the precinct in which they live, and facilitates the work of district and precinct election commissions.

About 20,600,000 voters are expected to vote in the forthcoming elections. More than 2 million of them are young people,and they will participate in the elections for the first time.

It should be noted that in July of this year, the Central Election Commission proposed the OSCE ODIHR to assess the pre-election situation and preparations for the forthcoming elections, taking into account international commitments and the readiness of our country to hold an important political event openly and publicly, in accordance with generally recognized international electoral standards. At that time, the OSCE ODIHR Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) positively evaluated the taken measures to ensure free and democratic elections in our country.

In particular, the OSCE ODIHR’s report highlights that under the leadership of President Shavkat Mirziyayev, In Uzbekistan has been pursued large scale reforms in almost all spheres, such as: economic and public administration. Particularly, the several reforms as: currency liberalization, visa-free regime and the reforms on foreign policy, closer cooperation with neighbors, the release of several political prisoners, and law enforcement are the fundament for the further development of Uzbekistan. It was noted that a new phase of large-scale reforms would be the basis for sending a mission.

The report emphasizes that the elections will be held according to the renewed electoral legislation. In accordance with OSCE recommendations, restrictions on the participation of certain categories of persons in the penitentiary system were removed, moreover, quota institute for seats in the Legislative Chamber also reformed, limitation was canceled (which was directly against to the international standards), and the implementation of other OSCE recommendations hopefully, will lead to held upcoming elections open and in democratic manner.

It should be noted that the election observation mission during their authority, bases on OSCE commitments, international standards and requirements for democratic elections and national legislation. The main functions of the experts are monitoring election campaign activities, election administrations’ works and their compliance by law. Moreover, the experts monitor the mass media coverage of the election campaign.

Unlike previous parliamentary elections, which were attended by limited amount of observers which consisted of about thirty people, in this year near to 300 representatives of the OSCE ODIHR Observation Mission are expected to take part in the forthcoming elections. On election day, experts will observe the opening of polling stations, the process of voting, counting and presenting the results.
 

Press-Service
Central Election Commission