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Political Space 
In his January 2020 address to the nation the President said that ‘democratic reforms are the only 
right way for us.’
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 The speech took place only a month after the December 2019 parliamentary 
elections that provided an excellent showcase of Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan, for both good and ill. The 
government sought to use the elections themselves as a showcase for the reform process - 
something it partially achieved -but in what was something of a rare international PR misstep, it also 
drew attention to the limits on what has been achieved so far.  
 
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and 
Human Rights’ (OSCE ODIHR) long-term observation findings, the gold standard in international 
election observation, highlighted some critical areas of continuing concern. According to the OSCE 
the December 22
nd
 parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan ‘took place under improved legislation and 
with greater tolerance of independent voices, but did not yet demonstrate genuine competition and 
full respect of election day procedures’. They also noted that ‘regrettably, the new legislation and 
modernized administration of elections did not improve the polling process, with international 
observers reporting numerous serious irregularities, such as voting on behalf of others and disregard 
for key procedures during counting’. 
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As the OSCE point out, in order to stand for election a party must have been registered with the 
Ministry of Justice ‘at least four months prior to the announcement of the election and to have 
collected the supporting signatures of at least 40,000 eligible voters across Uzbekistan’s 14 
administrative territorial units provided that no more than eight per cent of the signatures collected 
are from one unit. Given that a party is not required to nominate candidates in all constituencies, the 
signature collection requirements may be burdensome, in particular, the ceiling of eight per cent per 
region could create an eligibility barrier for a party that enjoys broad support nationally but lacks 
such support in one or a few regions’.
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19
 Full speech text: Lee Kyung-sik, “Uzbekistan enters a new decade; great opportunities open up to spearhead transformation even 
deeper”, The Korea Post, February 2020, http://www.koreapost.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=20207; Eurasianet, Uzbek president’s 
state-of-the-nation greeted with hope and gratitude, January 2020, https://eurasianet.org/uzbek-presidents-state-of-the-nation-greeted-
with-hope-and-gratitude 
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 The Economist, Which nation improved the most in 2019?, December 2019, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/12/21/which-
nation-improved-the-most-in-2019 
21
 The author has experienced this but see also: Navbahor Imamova, Where Freedoms Are Expanding – Slowly, The Atlantic, October 2019, 
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/10/uzbekistan-freedom-slowly-expanding/599446/ 
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 There has been opportunities provided for those willing to speak positively about the changes under Mirziyoyev but for those who have 
yet to trust the new regime opportunities are limited.   
23
 Uzbekistan News, Twitter Post, Twitter, January 2020, https://twitter.com/UzReport/status/1220616505748004864 
24
 OSCE, Uzbekistan, Parliamentary Elections, 22 December 2019: Final Report, May 2020, 
https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/uzbekistan/452170  
25
 Ibid. 

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Spotlight on Uzbekistan 
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Independent candidates are barred from standing. By way of comparison only two people are 
required to form a basic political party in the United Kingdom (UK) and any Parliamentary candidate, 
whether a member of a party or standing as an independent, requires signatures of ten registered 
voters in the seat they are contesting.
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It is therefore unsurprising that with the exception of the Ecological Party of Uzbekistan, which had 
previously sat in parliament as the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan with unelected seats reserved 
for it, no new party has been registered since 2003. The OSCE ODIHR has described these restrictions 
as ‘burdensome and open to arbitrary application’, and explained that in 2019 ‘these factors limited 
the opportunity for elections to serve as a contest between distinct political viewpoints and 
narrowed the choice available to voters’, given that ‘all parties are supportive of presidential policies, 
and while parties worked to distinguish themselves during the campaign, none identify themselves 
as an opposition party’.
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What was being put forward by the regime to voters in December 2019 was an attempt at 
‘competitive authoritarianism’: encouraging some intra-party competition within limited bounds that 
was restricted to the notional representation and prioritisation of issues rather than challenging the 
system. Each party staked out a broad but different political message, albeit not backed by detailed 
policies, to give voters the semblance of choice. Mirziyoyev’s Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDeP) 
promoted a pro-business message, and the Democratic Party (Milliy Tiklanish) staked out a family 
values- and cultural heritage-focused conservative platform. Two parties positioned themselves on 
the centre-left, with the People’s Democratic Party focused on the welfare state and the Social 
Democratic Party (Adolat) looking at on reforming justice.
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 The Ecological Party notionally addressed 
environmental issues - albeit whilst actively promoting nuclear power. In the end the UzLiDeP 
received 43 seats, Milliy Tiklanish 35, Adolat 21, the People’s Democratic Party 18 and the Ecological