Liberal Democratic Party leads in Uzbek parliamentary polls.

TASHKENT, December 29 (Itar-Tass) - The Liberal Democratic Party of
Uzbekistan is leading in Uzbekistan's parliamentary elections held last
Sunday. Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalimov, the chairman of the Central Electoral
Commission, told a news conference on Monday that the Liberal Democrats
had 34 seats in the lower chamber of the Uzbek parliament.
He said that 24 deputies would represent the Democratic Party of
National Revival (Milliy Tiklanish). The People's Democratic Party and the
Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party will have 22 and 14 deputies,
respectively.
The Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan elected 15 deputies to the
parliament's lower chamber at its conference on the vote day.
The turnout was 87.8 percent or more than 15 million voters.
Abdusalimov said that all the results were preliminary because runoff
elections would be held in 41 constituencies where none of the candidates
had gained more than 50 percent of the votes. He added that election
commissions would continue sending ballot papers to the Central Electoral
Commission in the next three days. The final results would be announced
not later than January 6 next year.
Two leading candidates in the aforesaid 41 constituencies will run in
the runoff elections.
In the meantime, a mission of CIS monitors has described the
parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan as free and open. They said that the
elections on December 27 had been held in compliance with the republic's
Constitution, election laws and universally recognized rules of holding
democratic elections.
The polls "demonstrated the level of political maturity of civil
society, created conditions for free declaration of will by voters,
strengthened the foundations of state sovereignty and democratic values of
the Republic of Uzbekistan", the Mission of CIS Monitors said.
Monitors from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) said in
their statement that there were no breaches that would cast doubt on the
election results. They noted the polls had been free and transparent and
had been held in line with the national legislation requirements and
Uzbekistan's international commitments. The SCO monitors noted that work
had been well organized in all the constituencies and that the Uzbek
voters were active.
The lower chamber of the Uzbek parliament (Oliy Majlis) has 150
deputies, 135 of which are elected in territorial single-mandate
constituencies. The remaining fifteen are elected by a conference of the
Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan.

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