TASHKENT: Voting started Sunday in Uzbekistan’s presidential election where hardline leader Islam Karimov faces only token opposition to his bid for a new seven year term at the head of the isolated Central Asian state.
Polls opened at 6:00 am (0100 GMT) and were due to close at 8:00 pm (1500 GMT).
Karimov, 69, was running against three virtual unknowns who have not once explicitly asked the ex-Soviet republic’s 28 million people to vote for them in the election.
Europe’s top vote monitoring body, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which Uzbekistan is a member, is sending only 12 observers as it concluded that "the political process in Uzbekistan does not seem conducive to meaningful and effective competition