Tashkent (AsiaNews) – Uzbek voters elected Interim President and current Prime Minister Shakvat Mirziyoyev as the new president of Uzbekistan.
The Central Election Commission said that Liberal Democratic Party candidate wont 88.61 per cent of the vote, or 15,9 millions votes out of 17,9 millions. The turnout, the Commission, noted, was 87.3 per cent.
The other candidates were Khatamjan Ketmanov (People's Democratic Party), Sarvar Otamuradov (Uzbekistan National Revival Democratic Party), and Nariman Umarov (Justice Social Democratic Party).
The election was called after the death of dictator Islam Karimov on 2 September. Karimov, who died in office, was Uzbekistan’s first president following independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Mirziyoyev had been serving as interim president since 8 September after he was appointed by the Supreme Assembly. In late November, he called on parliament to enact an amnesty for many figures deemed “troublesome" by the previous government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his congratulations to the newly elected Mirziyoyev and invited him to visit the Kremlin soon.
