New Delhi, Oct 28 Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra visited Uzbekistan as an international observer for the Presidential elections.
Chandra led a three-member delegation at the invitation of Chairman, Central Election Commission of Uzbekistan, to observe the conduct of the polls held on October 24.
The election, conducted under the new election code, was keenly watched by the international community.
Chandra and the Chairman, CEC of Uzbekistan Zainiddin M. Nizamkhodjaev, held a bilateral meeting on electoral cooperation on October 21.
The Chairman also briefed Chandra about the measures taken for the conduct of the election, including single electronic voters' list, arrangements for in-person voting, and early voting as well as Covid safety arrangements.
In a statement, the Election Commission said that Chandra spoke about the recent conduct of elections in India and various avenues for further strengthening electoral ties between the two countries through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on electoral cooperation and training and capacity building programmes which the ECI would be happy to organise for Uzbekistan election officials.
Delegates from Uzbekistan have been participating in the ECI's International Election Visitors Programmes (IEVP) organised during elections and officials from Uzbekistan have been attending training programmes at the ECI under the ITEC programme.
Under the Uzbekistan election law, the President is elected for a five year term from a single nationwide constituency.
The election administration follows a three-tier structure comprising the Central Election Commission, 14 District Election Commissions and 10,760 Precinct Election Commissions.
Uzbekistan has about 20 million electorate. Each polling station caters to a maximum of 3,000 voters. Early voting system was in place from October 14-20 and 4,21,618 people used the early voting facility including 1,20,524 from abroad.
Only registered political parties can nominate candidates to contest elections. Five candidates four men and one woman contested elections for the President of Uzbekistan.
The campaign for elections is funded by the state. A number of infographics carrying photographs and information about the five candidates was displayed at prominent locations in Uzbekistan.
The Indian delegation visited the two District Election Commissions to obtain an overview of the electoral administration, procedures and initiatives of the CEC of Uzbekistan.
Thereafter, they visited polling stations in Uzbekistan in order to observe the election process in detail.
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