Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Oct. 28
By Demir Azizov – Trend:
More than 1,000 representatives of foreign and local media outlets will be covering the Uzbek presidential election, Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov said Oct. 28 at a briefing in Uzbekistan.
“The CEC of Uzbekistan accredited more than 500 representatives of local and foreign media outlets, and the district election commissions accredited nearly 560 local journalists,” Abdusalomov said.
Uzbekistan is to hold an early presidential election December 4 due to the death of Islam Karimov, who passed away after suffering a stroke at the age of 79 on Sept. 2.
Candidates from four political parties of Uzbekistan participate in presidential election - Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP), People's Democratic Party (PDPU), Milly Tiklanish (National Revival) Party, and Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party.
Among the presidential candidates are the country’s Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev from UzLiDeP, Sarvar Otamuratov from Milly Tiklanish Party, Nariman Umarov from Adolat Party, and Hotamzhon Ketmonov from PDPU.
Abdusalomov said special attention is paid to ensuring openness and transparency of the election campaign, and creation of all conditions for wide access of mass media outlets to the information on holding the election.
Equal rights to use mass media outlets for the election campaign are given to the presidential candidates. In particular, each presidential candidate is provided with almost 900 minutes of airtime on TV and radio channels of Uzbekistan’s National Television and Radio Company.
The Uzbek republican periodicals provide the equal number of newspaper pages for each candidate during the election campaign free of charge.