Parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan 2019/20
The parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan 2019/20 were held on December 22, 2019 with a runoff election on January 5, 2020 in the Republic of Uzbekistan . The election was the first parliamentary election after the death of longtime president Islom Karimov in 2016, as a result of which Shavkat Mirziyoyev became the country's new president.
Electoral system
The 150 MPs in Oliy Majlis , the lower house of the Uzbek parliament, were elected by majority vote in 150 constituencies across the country. A candidate moved into the lower house of parliament if he could win an absolute majority of the votes cast in his constituency. In addition, a voter turnout of at least 33% was required for the results of an electoral district to be valid. If none of the candidates achieved an absolute majority or if the required turnout was not met, a second ballot was held two weeks after the first ballot in the constituency concerned. After an electoral reform in June 2019, the fixed number of 15 mandates for the ecological movement was canceled. These mandates had previously been awarded to the elected representatives from 135 electoral districts at a congress of the ecological movement. After the reform of the electoral law, the ecological movement took part in regular elections as the ecological party; the number of electoral districts was increased from 135 to 150 in order to keep the number of delegates at 150. This measure was in line with a recommendation by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) , which had criticized the reservation of mandates for the ecological movement following previous parliamentary elections as undemocratic. The right to vote was valid for all Uzbek citizens who were at least 18 years old at the time of the election. The only exceptions were people who had been judged by the courts to be legally incompetent due to an intellectual disability or a mental disorder . The right to stand for election was valid for Uzbek citizens aged at least 25 years who were able to prove permanent residence in Uzbekistan for a period of five years prior to election day. The list of candidates came exclusively from the registered parties in the country. These nominated candidates for each constituency. A quota of women of at least 30% applied to the candidates in each party.
background
The election was eagerly awaited due to President Mirziyoyev's reform-oriented course. During the Karimov era, elections in Uzbekistan were consistently classified by Western observers as neither free nor fair, particularly because of the repression of the opposition. Hopes of political reform and progressive democratization were attached to the new president . Under the motto New Uzbekistan - New Elections, Mirziyoyev publicly promoted his course and announced transparent and constitutional elections. He also liberalized the media landscape in Uzbekistan, unblocked the websites of foreign media and accredited critical journalists. The reforms in Uzbekistan resulted in the OSCE announcing that it would for the first time send a full-fledged observer mission to monitor the electoral process. At the same time, with the beginning of winter, there were major protests, especially in Karakalpakistan and Andijon . The reason for these protests was the inadequate supply of natural gas and electricity , which leads to major problems for the ordinary population, especially in winter. Although the protests remained localized and hardly coordinated, they were a significant event in authoritarian Uzbekistan.
Parties and candidates
In the run-up to the 2019/20 parliamentary elections, five parties were registered by the Uzbek Ministry of Justice. With the Liberal Democratic Party , the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan , Milliy Tiklanish and the Social Democratic Party Adolat , the four parties that had stood for election in the previous parliamentary election ran again. Then there was the Ecological Party, which was also eligible for election after the reform of the electoral law and which had the status of a regular party. The Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan is the largest and most important party in the country and emerged from the parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan in 2014/15 as the strongest faction. The main competitor of the ruling party was the nationally conservative Milliy Tiklanish party, which was able to steadily increase its share of the vote over the past elections. The lack of real opposition is characteristic of the political landscape in Uzbekistan. All of the registered parties clearly committed themselves to President Mirziyoyev, despite their different emphases, so that there was still a lack of political pluralism in Uzbekistan . When the candidates were nominated, more female and, overall, younger candidates were nominated compared to previous elections.
Election campaign
According to the constitution, the election campaign took place in close coordination between the registered parties and the Central Election Commission, which played an important role in the organization of election campaign events. The election campaign was divided into two phases, which had to be clearly delimited from one another in their design. First, the initial phase of the election campaign from September 20th to November 17th, the deadline for the registration of candidates. During this phase, large, central election campaign events were organized by the party bodies, at which the parties presented their programs and leading politicians and made them known to the general public. In a second phase from November 18 to December 20, the election campaign took place primarily at the local level and was largely organized by the individual candidates in their respective constituencies. All election campaign activities were banned on December 21 and the following election day, including the publication of opinion polls. The ban was observed across the board, so the election campaign ended on December 20th.
In terms of content, all parties agreed on the assessment of the president, who was praised and supported by all five registered parties. This fact highlighted the lack of pluralism in Uzbekistan and the continued repression of the opposition, including under the new President Mirziyoyev. The main topics of the election campaign included economic development, combating unemployment , improving the health system , energy policy and social security . A notable aspect of the election campaign was the call by an Ecological Party politician during a televised debate to build a nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan. This energy policy advance by an ecologically oriented party represented an extraordinary positioning, but was probably due to the fact that President Mirziyoyev also promoted such a project. Overall, however, there were hardly any substantive discussions during the election campaign, which gave the impression of a lack of political competition.
In order to create equal opportunities in the election campaign, most election campaign events were organized by the Central Election Commission or its local branches. This led to a high degree of uniformity with regard to the design of the election campaign and severely restricted the parties in developing their own strategies and formats. In addition, all expenditures in the context of the election campaign were covered by a state budget, the amount of which was based on the number of registered candidates of each party. It was forbidden to accept payments from abroad or from private individuals. Main forms of campaigning included small events with a candidate and a few voters, the distribution of leaflets , debates on television, and campaign advertising on social media . Overall, media coverage of the election in Uzbekistan was rather low, and state media in particular limited themselves to the consistently positive portrayal of the President's trade. The television debates held for the first time, however, were seen as a step towards a stronger debate culture in the election campaign. The use of social media also ensured greater awareness of the election campaign, but remained at a manageable level.
Result
The official final result of the election was announced by the Central Election Commission. According to this, a total of 13,963,627 Uzbek citizens cast their votes, 112,411 of them from abroad. The voter turnout was given as 67.8%, with 73.3% of those eligible to vote in Germany exercising their right to vote, while it was only 6.6% abroad. In 125 electoral districts, one of the candidates won an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first ballot, while runoff elections were held in the remaining 25 districts. The distribution of the seats in the newly assembled lower house was as follows:
| Political party | Seats | Change to 2014/15 |
|---|---|---|
| Liberal Democratic Party | 53 | +1 |
| Milliy Tiklanish | 36 | ± 0 |
| Adolat | 24 | +4 |
| People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan | 22nd | −5 |
| Ecological party | 15th | ± 0 |
| total | 150 | 0 |
The changes in parliamentary groups remained manageable overall. The Liberal Democratic Party was able to consolidate its status as the strongest faction, but clearly missed an absolute majority of the votes in the lower house. A continuing trend is the loss of votes in the People's Democratic Party, which again lost seats. These were largely taken over by the Social Democrats of the Adolat party, which achieved its historically best result in a parliamentary election with 24 seats. The Ecological Party won exactly the 15 mandates it was previously entitled to by law and thus remained represented in the same parliamentary group. Another development was the greatly increased proportion of female MPs, the number of which doubled from 24 in the previous legislative period to 48.
On January 20, Parliament met and confirmed Nurdinjon Ismoilov as Speaker of Parliament. On January 22nd, the new cabinet under Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov of the Liberal Democratic Party was approved by parliament. With the composition of the newly elected parliament, President Mirziyoyev was certain of the support of parliament.
rating
The election was monitored by numerous national and international observers. At the local level, a total of 140,000 observers from parties, authorities and organizations were on duty and observed the course of the election. In addition, more than 800 international observers from international organizations were on site, including teams from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization , the Commonwealth of Independent States and, for the first time, an observer mission from the OSCE that was deployed to the Central Asian country in response to democratic reforms of the electoral system. The OSCE observers praised the improved legal framework, the more professional organization of the election and the peaceful course of the election. However, they also criticized the continuing shortcomings in Uzbek democracy, which consisted in particular of restricting freedom of expression and suppressing the opposition. These restrictions weakened political competition and pluralism in Uzbekistan. In addition, despite administrative and legal improvements, numerous irregularities were found in the course of the election, including numerous cases of multiple votes and votes cast without sufficient identification through valid identification documents . Overall, the OSCE observers came to the conclusion in their final report that elections had failed to meet democratic standards. The observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States drew a consistently positive conclusion and assessed the parliamentary election as democratic and transparent. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization also praised the election as free, legitimate and democratic.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b https://data.ipu.org/node/187/elections. Retrieved May 26, 2020 (English).
- ↑ OSCE (ed.): ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report . 1st edition. Warsaw May 13, 2020, p. 6-13 .
- ↑ a b IFES Election Guide | Elections: Uzbekistan Parliament 2019. Retrieved May 26, 2020 .
- ↑ Umida Hashimova: What Recent protests in Uzbekistan Really Tell Us. Retrieved May 26, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Abdujalil Abdurasulov: Questions about Uzbekistan's new era of 'openness' . In: BBC News . December 20, 2019 ( bbc.com [accessed May 26, 2020]).
- ↑ https://data.ipu.org/node/187/elections. Retrieved May 26, 2020 (English).
- ^ Catherine Putz: After a Smooth Election, Real Challenges Still Ahead for Uzbekistan. Retrieved May 27, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ a b Uzbekistan's Parliamentary Elections: Business As Usual (Except For One Thing). Retrieved May 26, 2020 (English).
- ↑ OSCE (ed.): ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report . 1st edition. Warsaw May 13, 2020, p. 14-20 .
- ↑ Uzbekistan's Parliamentary Elections: Business As Usual (Except For One Thing). Retrieved May 27, 2020 (English).
- ^ The editors: Parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan: ruling party remains the strongest force. In: Novastan German. December 23, 2019, accessed on May 27, 2020 (German).
- ↑ OSCE (ed.): ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report . 1st edition. Warsaw May 13, 2020, p. 31 .
- ↑ OSCE (ed.): ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report . 1st edition. Warsaw May 13, 2020, p. 2-4 .
- ^ Results of the parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan. January 15, 2020, accessed May 27, 2020 .
