Legislation

On December 5, 1999 elections to Oliy Majlis (Supreme Council), the supreme legislative body of Uzbekistan took place. These were the second elections since Uzbekistan has attained independence and, like the previous elections of 1994, were run in compliance with the Parliamentary Elections Law adopted on December 28, 1993. According to the Law, Oliy Majlis has only one house [chamber] and consists of 250 representatives.

The right to delegate representatives to Oliy Majlis belongs to political parties, Jokargy Kenes (Supreme Council) of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, and to the councils of peopleCs delegates of all provinces and of the city of Tashkent.

Actually, khokims (heads of local executive authorities) of all levels pass as nominated candidates from the local authorities.

The following entities can be elected as parliament representatives: members of the government (except ministers and a prime minister), judges, staff of the prosecutor's office, heads of ministries or agencies and their deputies, and officials from executive authorities. But as soon as they are elected, they are discharged from their previous positions. However, this regulation is not applicable to khokims -- they retain their position while serving as parliament representatives.

Khokims are allowed to serve as parliament members because Oliy Majlis

does not belong to the category of a so-called professional parliaments,

and is convened in full complement only 4 times a year for 2-3 days to

review and pass laws prepared by parliamentary committees or presented

by the executive authorities.

A political party may propose candidates to Oliy Majlis under conditions that the party was registered at the Ministry of Justice at least 6 months prior to the date of elections and collected no less than fifty thousand votes of electors supporting the participation of the party in the elections. However, is one of the administrative-territorial formations (the Republic of Karakalpakstan, or any province, or in the city of Tashkent) a political party may collect no more than 10% of votes from 50 thousand electors. Political parties have the right to nominate 250 parliamentary candidates—one from each electoral district.

However, in 1999 a new practice was introduced: unlike previous elections, now citizens themselves also have the right to nominate their candidates to Oliy Majlis. In compliance to the amendments to the Parliamentary Elections Law adopted on December 26, 1997, each citizen or group of citizens can create an initiative group of at least one hundred voters from one electoral district to nominate a candidate. Thus, in one electoral district up to 7 people could have themselves nominated—five from political parties, one each from local authorities and initiative group.

In September this year, during the election campaign a Center for the support of independent candidates was created, with a legal status of a non-government non-profit organization. The head of the Center is Dr. Akmal Saidov, Director of the National Human Rights Center; he is holding doctor's degree in law. This organization was created to assist independent candidates with the formation of citizen initiative groups, to help them get registered by the election commission, to collect votes, organize meetings and campaigns. One of the first who benefited from this assistance was Akmal Saidov himself who was registered as an independent candidate.

Elections to Oliy Majlis are considered void if less than 50 percent of all electors voted. Candidate who received more than half of the votes of the people who voted is considered elected. The law as of August 19 1999 "On Amendments to the Parliamentary Elections Law" has waived the 5 percent barrier for political parties. Now the candidate who won in his electoral district shall be registered as Oliy Majlis delegate regardless of the total number of votes his party gained.

First Results

According to the information of the Central Electoral Commission 95.03% of all registered voters took part in the elections on December 5, 1999. for 250 seats 1,010 candidates have been nominated. In the electoral districts from 2 to 7 candidates vied for one delegate's mandate, including representatives of the 5 officially registered political parties: 119 candidates from Social democratic party Adolat; 108 from Vatan Taraqiyoty; 93 from the Democratic party of Uzbekistan Milliy Tiklanish; 207 from the National Democratic party Fidokorlar; 180 from the People's Democratic party of Uzbekistan; 205 from the local authorities; and 98 from voters' initiative groups. Candidates from Birlik and Erk parties whose leaders are in exile, have not been allowed to take part in the elections on the official grounds of not being registered at the Ministry of Justice.

Ethnic split of candidates as follows: more than 89% are Uzbeks, 52 are Karakalpak, 22 are Tajik, 16 are Russian, 13 are Kazakhs, and 11 people of other nationalities.

A small group of 42 international observers monitored the election campaign in Uzbekistan. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE represented by 18 observers decided to have a limited election evaluation mission. According to Ms. Madlene Wilkens, Head of the OSCE monitors group, her experts would not leave the country, but would refuse to take part in the official events of the Central Electoral Commission, and would not be present at the polling stations. The reason behind was that the observers had their doubts that the elections in Uzbekistan would be "truly pluralistic and competitive".

Over the two weeks of their stay in the republic European observers noticed @the interference of government administration in every aspect of the election processA. It was reported that trade union leaders had been bullied to make them withdraw their candidacies for the benefit of government officials. Chairman of the CEC Najimiddin Komilov agreed that "the cases of putting pressure on candidates by local authorities" did occur and 21 people indeed withdrew their candidacies (Kommercant-daily, 01.12.99), and khokimiats interfered with the election procedure and election campaign.

The observers also believe that the Parliamentary Election Law fails to provide equal conditions for nominating candidates. For instance, candidates nominated by local authorities (that is the khokims) do not have to collect signatures to support their candidacies, whereas the political parties' candidates must collect no less than 50,000 signatures of voters, and the citizens' initiative groups—no less than 8% of votes from the total number of electors in the electoral district. In addition, all meetings of candidates with voters were held under the supervision of regional electoral commissions in the presence of their representatives who were influenced, naturally, by local authorities.

The international monitors group comprises also representatives from diplomatic missions accredited in Tashkent. among them are the officers from the embassies of India, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Bulgaria, Palestine, and Latvia, as well as from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belorussia, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. The government of Israel is represented by the chairman of the board of the Industrial Development Bank. The body of the international observers also includes representatives from the two US non-government organizations, the Asian Development Bank, and the [Konrad] Adenauer and [Friedrich] Ebert Foundation of Germany.

The results of the first voting tour show that delegates have been elected in 184 electoral districts, and in the remaining 66 districts voting will take place one more time as none of the candidates was able to gain the required 50% of the votes.

Preliminary results show that the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan [NDPU], the former Communist Party, with its most developed network of primary organizations, has lost half of its seats in the new parliament (from 69 to 32). Vatan Taraqiyoty party now has 5 delegates less. Adolat has radically reduced its representation (from 47 to 9). The new parliament shall see the formation of new delegate fractions, such as the fractions of Fidokorlar party which at the moment finds more support of the President than any other party (19 delegates) and of Milliy Tiklanish (6 delegates), as well as of the independent delegates (11 people).

Slightly reduced, but still the most numerous is the group of khokims and other executive authority officials -- 98 people altogether, including 75 khokims of provinces, cities and districts, as well as 5 advisors to the president or their deputies. Thus, 39% of the delegates, through their principal position, are in direct subordination to the president, although other delegates are hardly to build up any kind of opposition to the regime within the parliament either.

The second voting took place on December 19, 1999. On December 23 the Central Election Commission released its report on final results. 87.4% of those having right to vote attended this election on this date. In 65 electoral districts (of remained 66) the deputies have been elected, and in the district #179 no one candidate collected necessary number of votes to be elected. The remaining places at the parliament are distributed in following shares:

NDPU – 16, Fidokorlar – 15, Vatan Taraqyoty – 11, Adolat – 2, Milliy Tiklanish – 4, representatives of local authorities – 12, Initiative groups – 5

The final distribution of all palaces in Olyi Majlis (except one) looks as follows: