Uzbek president
wins new term in snap election with token opposition

TCSN
WORLD DESK

Uzbekistan’s
incumbent president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has overwhelmingly won a new
seven-year term in a snap election in which he faced three weak opponents,
preliminary results showed Monday. Mirziyoyev received more than 87% of
the vote and each of the challengers about 4%, the country’s national elections
commission said. Sunday’s vote followed a constitutional referendum that
extended

presidential terms from five to seven years. In 2021,
Mirziyoyev was elected to his second five-year term, the limit allowed by the
constitution at the time. A set of constitutional amendments approved in
April’s plebiscite allowed him to begin the count of terms anew and run for two
more, raising the possibility that he could stay in office until 2037. Since
coming to power in 2016 after the death of longtime dictator Islam Karimov,
Mirziyoyev has introduced a slew of political and economic reforms that eased
some of the draconian policies of his predecessor, who made Uzbekistan into one
of the region’s most repressive countries. At the same time, Uzbekistan
has remained strongly authoritarian with no significant opposition. All
registered political parties are loyal to Mirziyoyev.