As expected by different experts parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan were recognized valid. Chairman of the Central Election Commission Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov released that information later the same day (December 27), and added that 15,108,950 voters or 87.8% of all registered voters participated in the elections and, according to the article 44 of the Law on Elections to Oliy Majlis they were legal and undisputable.

neweurasia wrote about different surveys and one in particular by loyal to the Uzbek government Uzniform information agency.

Online survey, conducted during end of October and first decade of November asked respondents if they “…know that December 27 [2009] elections to the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis and region, district and city Kengashes of people’s deputies will be held?”.

Out of 159 survey participants 82 (51.6%) answered “NO”; 12 (7.5%) referred to the difficulties with responding to that question; and, only 65 (40.9%) answered “YES”.

No generalization from my side but… If we consider that this was just a survey asking if they knew about then upcoming parliamentary elections that didn’t mean that they expressed their will to participate in actual elections.

Such opinion comes after checking out results of other survey by the same information agency which asked people to evaluate “…evaluate current activities of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis?”. Out of 171 respondents more than a half (89, or 52%) answered “NEGATIVE”; 15 (8.8%) participants answered “More negative than positive”; “Positive” and “More positive than negative” options got 41 respondent’s approval which sums up to 24% of all answers.

Ferghana.ru’s article titled “Parliamentary Elections Held in Uzbekistan” emerged many different opinions by those who read it.

максим (maksim) says [ru] that his “grandma was forced to participate in the elections because she was said that in case of not participating her pension for January would be available only after New Year.” Nobody wants to be without money on a New Year night, to meet and “celebrate” it with a poor holiday dinner. Thus, old lady had to go and “contribute” to that theater performance.

Che Lovek (basically, means a Human being), another active participant of the discussion, got mad because went to the elections to vote against everybody but couldn’t find such option. His fellow Dionis responded by: “Since we didn’t have “against everybody” option I filled in boxes of all candidates.” This means his bulletin didn’t meet requirements of the counting machine and had been exluded from calculation as invalid.

Whatever happens in the minds of citizens of Uzbekistan, international observers recognized elections as “democratic and open”. Very often serious politics doesn’t care about real state of affairs and analyzes events through the prism of national interests.

Photo courtesy Uza.uz: President Karimov participating in the election on December 27.

Cross-posted from neweurasia.net.