Uzbekistan’s President Re-elected For 7-Year Term

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the president of Uzbekistan, won a snap election on Sunday, July 9, with 87 per cent of the vote, the Central Election Commission announced on Monday, citing preliminary results. He will now serve another seven years in office.

President Mirziyoyev will hold power until 2030 as a result of this victory. Mirziyoyev received congratulations on his reelection from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mirziyoyev, who has been in office since 2016, asked for an early election after a referendum altered the constitution, resetting his term count and increasing the presidential term from five to seven years.

The seventh presidential election in Uzbekistan since its independence in 1991 occurred on Sunday. More than 10,000 voting places were set up nationwide for Sunday’s election.

Mirziyoyev was widely expected to win the most votes while competing against three relatively unknown candidates from the Ecological Party, the People’s Democratic Party, and Adolat Social Democratic Party.

Having previously served as Islam Karimov’s prime minister, Mirziyoyev has positioned himself as a reformer and promised to build a “New Uzbekistan” since assuming office.

He had implemented long-awaited reforms that made taxes more straightforward, took away barriers for businesses, and allowed many people to resolve their bureaucratic issues by submitting petitions on the presidential website.

The current administration has also been charged with attempting to undermine the country’s nascent democratic efforts.

Uzbekistan was formerly an energy exporter but now consumes more gas and oil than it produces. As a result, it has been purchasing Russian hydrocarbons, benefiting from Moscow’s diversion of exports away from the West, according to Aljazeera.

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