Excerpts from report by Uzbek TV on 10th January

[Presenter shown in the studio] Good afternoon, dear compatriots. In our
live programmes we reported about the results of the [presidential]
elections yesterday. Now we will contact the press centre of the Central
Electoral Commission [CEC] and special correspondent, Husan Ermatov,
reports from there.

[passage omitted: the CEC press centre head Sherzod Qudratkhojayev in Uzbek
and Russian with English translation followed opens the news conference;
the CEC chairman, Najmiddin Komilov, says preparatory work for presidential
elections was well-organized]

[Komilov in Uzbek with Russian and English translations following] Thus, we
have the following information: the total number of registered voters is
12,746,903. The number of people who had cast their votes is 12,123,199
which is 95.10 per cent of votes. Of them, the number of votes which
supported Islam Karimov's candidacy is 11,147,621 which is 91.90 per cent
of votes. The number of votes which supported Abdulhafiz Jalolov's'
candidacy is 505,161 which is 4.17 per cent. The number of ballot papers
that were found invalid is 470,417 which is 3.92 per cent.

One can see that the presidential elections in Uzbekistan are valid and that
there was a choice of candidates and our elections took place in line with
the adopted laws. There were no cases of violations of the law or
principles of democracy. We sincerely congratulate Islam Abduganiyevich
Kaimov with this great success and wish him good health and success in his
great work for the development of Uzbekistan.

[passage to end omitted: thanks foreign and local observers, representatives
of diplomatic mission registered in Uzbekistan, journalists for their
active work during the elections]

Source: Uzbek Television first channel, Tashkent, in Uzbek 0700 gmt 10 Jan
00
BBC Mon CAU 100100/** JF/AM