CIS Executive Committee chairman to coordinate CIS observers at Uzbek polls
TASHKENT. Dec 19 (Interfax) - The chairman of the Commonwealth of Independent States Executive Committee, Sergei Lebedev, will lead a CIS mission that will work at a December 21 parliamentary election in Uzbekistan.
"Chairman of the Executive Committee and CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev has arrived in Uzbekistan. He will head the mission of observers representing CIS countries. He is being accompanied by 13 representatives of the CIS Executive Committee," a spokesman for the Uzbek Central Election Commission told Interfax on Friday.
Elections to the Oliy Majlis, the lower chamber of the Uzbek Parliament, and elections to the country's regional legislatures are due to take place on December 21.
CIS long-term observers, led by CIS Executive Committee First Deputy chairman Vladimir Garkun, arrived in Uzbekistan on December 7.
All in all, the CIS electoral observation mission in Uzbekistan includes more than 70 representatives of electoral authorities, legislatures, administrations, public organizations and the media, as well as scholars and political scientists from CIS member states.
According to the Uzbek Central Election Commission, electoral observation missions representing the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Association of World Election Bodies and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation will monitor the country's polls alongside the CIS mission.
It was reported earlier that the Uzbek Central Election Commission had cleared four parties for the parliamentary elections after they had collected the required number of voter signatures (at least 40,000). They include the Liberal-Democratic Party, the democratic Milliy Tiklanish (National Renaissance)party, the People's Democratic Party and the social democratic Adolat (Justice) party. The overall number of registered candidates stands at 535.
The Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan will take part in the country's parliamentary elections for the second time. Under Uzbek electoral laws, 15 of the 150 seats in the parliament's lower chamber are assigned to it. The Ecological Movement will hold a conference dedicated to the elections on December 21.
The first bicameral parliament in Uzbekistan was formed in 2005. The Legislative Chamber consists of 150 deputies elected in December 2009 from four political parties and the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan for a five-year term. The upper chamber, the Senate, consists of 100 deputies elected in equal numbers (six) from the Republic of Karakalpakstan, the regions, and the city of Tashkent. Sixteen members of the Senate are appointed by the Uzbek president from amongst the most authoritative citizens.