To date, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has accredited 168 international observers to participate in the elections of deputies to the Legislative Chamber and local councils, which are going to be held on December 22, 2019. This was announced during a CEC meeting on December 10 at the International Press Center.
“To date, the CEC has accredited 168 international observers. Currently, observer missions from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the Commonwealth of Independent States are operating in Uzbekistan. Also, a group of observers from the interparliamentary assembly of the OSCE has been confirmed.
In accordance with the “Regulation on observers from foreign states and international organizations in the elections in Uzbekistan”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted documents of 18 observers from the SCO. 7 of these observers are members of the SCO Secretariat, 7 – members of the Central Election Commissions of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia, 2 – representatives of the Foreign Ministries of Pakistan and China, and 2 – members of the Russian parliament. The accreditation process of observers from foreign countries and international organizations continues,” Kun.uz correspondent quoted the CEC member Gulnoza Rakhimova as saying.
The Commission decided to register 18 members of the SCO observer mission as international observers.
Reportedly, 12 local and foreign journalists, including the non-state news agency Uzlife, the Indian magazine Outlook, the Indonesian television channel Metro TV, the Malaysian state TV channel Alhijrah and the Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera were accredited to the event. A CEC member Feruzakhon Akhmedova noted that to date, 267 local and 125 foreign media have been registered.
According to the CEC deputy chairman Makhmud Istamov, it is expected that 350 observers from 54 states and about 300 experts from international organizations will be present at the elections to the Legislative Chamber and local councils. Thus the total number of observers will exceed 600 people.
