Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) – Elections to the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan and kengashes of people’s deputies started in Uzbekistan at 8:00 Tashkent time on 20 December.

The elections will last until 20:00. Citizens of the republic will have to elect deputies to the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis and regional, district, city Kengashes.

Over 16,000 polling stations have been opened throughout the country and during the diplomatic missions of Uzbekistan abroad, to which citizens of the country go to vote from the first minutes.

About 130 foreign journalists from more than 70 news outlets will cover the elections.

The Central Election Commission reported that 10,306 polling stations will operate on election day, 55 of them outside the country, including eight permanent and 57 mobile in Russia. It is expected that about 20 million 600 thousand citizens will participate in the elections this year, of which more than 2 million will vote for the first time.

Over 20.5 million people are registered in the single voter list, including about 1.7 million voters attached to polling stations established abroad. At the same time as the polling stations in Uzbekistan, a polling station began at the Consulate General of the Republic in Yekaterinburg.

Elections are held in accordance with the new Electoral Code. Five political parties are participating for the first time: the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (UzLiDeP), the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (PDPU), the Democratic Party Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival), the Social Democratic Party Adolat (Justice) ) and the Ecological Party of Uzbekistan. All of them nominated 150 candidates, respectively, according to the number of constituencies.

Election observation is carried out by more than 800 international observers, including the full-fledged Mission of the Bureau for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE / ODIHR), representatives of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Parliamentary Assembly of the CCTS, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The Hague Conference.

About 150 thousand Uzbek citizens took part in the early voting, which took place on 12-18 December. Of these, 59,226 voters casted votes within the country and 89,807 - abroad.