TASHKENT [Uzbekistan]: President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan was re-elected on Sunday with 87.1 per cent of the vote, according to preliminary results released on Monday by the nation's Central Election Commission, Al Jazeera reported. With the participation of more than 15 million voters in Sunday's polls, Mirziyoyev secured a majority of votes.
Notably, the Uzbek President, who has been in power since 2016, called an early election after a vote changed the constitution, resetting his term count and increasing the presidential tenure from five to seven years.
Mirziyoyev was already predicted to win the most votes despite competing against three relatively unknown candidates from the Ecological Party, the People's Democratic Party, and Adolat Social Democratic Party, Al Jazeera reported. Since assuming power, Mirziyoyev, who had previously served as prime minister under his predecessor Islam Karimov, had positioned himself as a reformer.
He had implemented long-awaited reforms that simplified taxes, removed barriers for businesses, and allowed many people to resolve their bureaucratic issues by submitting petitions on the presidential website, according to Al Jazeera. The economy and education have been the main issues of Mirziyoyev's reelection campaign.
He has stated that his immediate goal is to double the nation's GDP to USD 160 billion. Like other nations in Central Asia, Uzbekistan is attempting to limit the negative effects of Western sanctions against its longtime trading partner Russia because of the conflict in Ukraine.