Excerpts from report by Uzbek TV on 5th December

[Correspondent with the building of the Central Electoral Commission in the
background; over video of Uzbek President Islam Karimov arriving at a
polling station, marking his ballot paper and putting it into an urn; him
coming out of the polling station to meet and speak to people] Uzbekistan
is holding elections on the threshold of the 21st century to decide its
future.

[passage omitted: on fair elections]

Polling station No 652 of electoral district No 25 in Yakkasaroy district in
our capital has been full of voters since the early hours of the morning.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov also came to the polling station to cast his
vote to elect candidates to the Supreme Assembly and local authorities.
Voters gave our head of state a warm welcome.

[passage omitted: correspondent describes how Karimov followed the procedure
for casting his vote; video showed Karimov letting two elderly men who look
surprised to find themselves casting their ballot with the president put
their ballot papers into the urn first and coming outside to the applause
of voters; he is then shown shaking the hands of some of them and
exchanging greetings with them, thronged by people]

[Islam Karimov] Are you pleased with the [voting] procedure, with today's
climate, with the circumstances in which the elections are taking place?
[Crowd of voters] We are greatly pleased with them. We wish you good health,
Islam aka [term of respect].

[Karimov] I have one request to make of you: looking around and considering
our domestic affairs, we can see a good many problems awaiting their
solution. But we also have our plans and programmes to resolve these
burning issues. For instance, to take any issue - what should be done by
2005 [changes tack]. Take, for example, health care, what should we do? And
how will we resolve the current problems and tasks? Or take, for instance,
the education sector. Everything is agreed until the year 2006. Or
agriculture - everthing is agreed and clear. I personally will not be calm
days and nights, if, having received a letter or complaint from somewhere
or having seen people speaking about their problems on television, I do not
resolve these questions because my nature is such. It stems from my youth.
Because if I resolve one question, one person will bless me. If I help one
person or ease his troubles and find a way of resolving it, I myself will
be glad.

One more point I would like to talk about, availing myself of this
opportunity, is that making empty promises, or promising that everything
will be all right tomorrow, or saying that problems will be settled at
once, is wrong, to my mind. It is not respectful towards people. In other
words, making promises on the spur of the moment and promising things as
they would in Soviet times to win people's trust is a temporary thing. This
time will pass soon. How will they look people in the face, after that, and
how will they save face? It is a betrayal of people's trust, of people who
set a high place by philanthopy and merit. From this point of view, five or
six people have promised a lot at their meetings with you and I am sure
that you have decided for yourselves who has made empty promises and who
will justify your confidence or requests by doing real deeds.

There are many young people among us. I spoke about one thing and I want to
repeat it again. The sloganl "Youth is Our Future" is well known to
everyone. Many people, using this slogan to look good, give many empty
promises. They say that tomorrow, God willing, everything will be fine and
our children will be fine. However, I understand this another way. I
understand this in the way that current problems should be spoken of. Of
course, in order to resolve these problems we all should be united. My view
is that that our youth should grow up as soon as possible and we should
turn to practical questions. After this we can do something together with
these young people. However, what should we do to achieve this? We have
many problems in implementing the personnel training programme.
[passage to end omitted: money spent to construct new and reconstruct old
colleges, additional fund are needed for new ones; Karimov wished happiness
to all young people; Uzbek girls are the most beautiful girls in the world;
Karimov wishes good luck to youth; video shows an old woman hugging Karimov
and praising his parents for bringing up such a son and blessing him, all
around him say prayer]

Source: Uzbek Television first channel, Tashkent, in Uzbek 1340 gmt 05 Dec
99
BBC Mon CAU 051299/** MA/JF/SA