UZBEKISTAN: NEW VOTING TECHNIQUES IN THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN OF THE 2004 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION
Abstract
This article is devoted to an analysis of the parliamentary election held on 26 December 2004 in Uzbekistan. The election campaign officially began on 20 September. This time, in contrast to the campaigns of 1994 and 1999 when the people did not have a direct say in the country’s decision-making process, the political parties used new voting techniques and citizens elected candidates to a bicameral representative power body for the first time. This means that from now on Uzbekistan, which is an authoritarian state, will have a parliamentary house formed from representatives of the people and operating on a permanent and professional basis. What is more, the Uzbekistan government made a point of demonstrating that this election was held democratically and that it rendered broad assistance and support to the candidates running for deputy. At a Central Election Commission press conference held on 22 October 2004, it was announced that five of the registered political parties were allowed to run for seats in parliament. 1 And on 1 December, the CEC announced that 74 candidates from the Social-Democratic Party Adolat, 61 from the Democratic Party Milliytiklanish, 119 from the Liberal-Democratic Party, 89 from the National-Democratic Party Fidokorlar, 118 from the People’s Democratic Party, and 56 candidates from independent citizen initiative groups were officially registered to run in the upcoming election. 2 The government allocated a total of 3.3 billion sums (approximately 3.5 million dollars) to support the election campaign. As a result, according to a CEC press release the very next day after the election, 27 December, 12,197,000 (85.1%) of the 14,323,000 citizens registered to vote showed up at the polls. One hundred and twenty voting districts were formed in the country, and approximately 18,000 local observers and a large number of international observers invited by the republic’s government were present at the election.
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A CEC press release named the following parties as those allowed to participate in the parliamentary election on 26 December 2004: the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, the National-Democratic Party Fidokorlar (Patriots), the Liberal-Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, the Social-Democratic Party Adolat (Justice), and the Democratic Party of Uzbekistan Milliytiklanish (National Renaissance). This is a complete list of the political parties officially registered in the country: pursuant to Art 21 of the Law on Elections to the Parliament, only after state registration with the Ministry of Justice may a party submit an application to the CEC requesting permission to participate in the elections.
See: S. Ejkov, “Elections without Choice.” The article was published on the website of the Uzbek nongovernmental noncommercial group, Committee for Freedom of Speech and Expression [www.freeuz.org], 2 December 2004.
See: Speech by Sh. Kudratkhojaev at the international conference on Voting Techniques and the Mass Media: Legal and Ethical Aspects. Tashkent: Uzbekistan Publishers, 7-8 October 2004.
See: A. Shekhar, “Press Conference of B. Mustafaev, Chairman of the Central Election Commission” [www.centrasia.ru], 22 October 2004.
The main opposition parties are: Birlik (Unity), Erk (Liberty), and Ozod dehqonlar (Free Farmers). Birlik was created at the end of the 1980s, Erk, at the beginning of the 1990s, and Ozod dehqonlar, at the beginning of the 1990s, then ceased its activity for a while, resuming it in 2004.
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