MOSCOW (AP) – Uzbekistan holds a snap presidential election on Sunday, a vote that follows a constitutional referendum that prolonged the incumbent’s time period from 5 to seven years.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected in 2021 to a second five-year time period, the restrict allowed by the structure. But the amendments authorised in April’s plebiscite allowed him to start the depend of phrases anew and run for 2 extra, elevating the likelihood that he may keep in workplace till 2037.
The 65-year-old Mirziyoyev is ready to win the vote by landslide towards three token rivals.
“The political landscape has remained unchanged, and none of the parliamentary political parties stand in open opposition to the president’s policies and agenda,” the elections observer arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mentioned in a pre-voting report.
Since coming to energy in 2016 after the dying of longtime dictatorial chief Islam Karimov, Mirziyoyev has launched a slew of political and financial reforms that eased a few of the draconian insurance policies of his predecessor, who made Uzbekistan into one of many area’s most repressive international locations.
Under Mirziyoyev, freedom of speech has been expanded in contrast with the full suppression of dissent in the course of the Karimov period, and a few unbiased information media and bloggers have appeared. He additionally relaxed the tight controls on Islam within the predominantly Muslim nation that Karimov imposed to counter dissident views.
At the identical time, Uzbekistan has remained strongly authoritarian with no important opposition. All registered political events are loyal to Mirziyoyev.
In April’s referendum, greater than 90% of those that forged ballots voted to approve the amendments extending the presidential time period.
As a part of his reforms, Mirziyoyev has abolished state regulation of cotton manufacturing and gross sales, ending many years of compelled labor within the nation’s cotton industries, a significant supply of export revenues. Under Karimov, greater than 2 million Uzbeks have been compelled to work within the annual cotton harvest.
Mirziyoyev has additionally lifted controls on laborious foreign money, encouraging funding from overseas, and he moved to enhance relations with the West that soured beneath Karimov. He has maintained shut ties with Russia and signed quite a few key agreements with China, which turned Uzbekistan’s largest buying and selling companion as a part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
Like the leaders of different ex-Soviet Central Asian nations which have shut financial ties with Moscow, Mirziyoyev has engaged in a fragile balancing act after Moscow despatched troops into Ukraine, steering away from backing the Russian motion however not condemning it both.
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