Uzbekistan’s parliamentary elections 2024: ODIHR election observation mission final report

Uzbekistan's 2024 parliamentary elections were technically well prepared, but the political environment limited genuine voter choice. While there have been some positive developments in the electoral framework, these elections faced significant challenges in meeting international standards for democratic elections. All five registered political parties campaigned under equal conditions, but their campaigns were low key and avoided challenging the ruling party's policies or each other. Media restrictions further constrained voters' access to diverse viewpoints. Election day was calm and orderly, but it was marked by numerous violations and procedural problems.

These are some of the main conclusions from the final report on the October 2024 elections published today by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

The report offers 21 recommendations to improve the election process and support efforts to bring it further in line with the commitments made by all OSCE states, as well as other international obligations and standards for democratic elections.

Key recommendations include:

• Guaranteeing the right to establish political parties by removing undue legislative and practical restrictions on individuals and groups
• Revising legislation that restricts fundamental rights and freedoms
• Clarifying provisions on misuse of state resources and participation of public officials in election campaigns
• Ensuring the independence of the election administration by revising nomination and appointment procedures for lower-level commissions
• Expanding candidacy rights to independent candidates and allowing nominations from public associations and citizen groups
• Protecting voter list integrity by establishing and enforcing robust safeguards against misuse of supplementary voter lists
• Enabling genuine citizen election observation by amending relevant legislation
• Increasing electoral transparency by publishing polling station-level results on the CEC website in accessible formats as they become available.
• Protecting freedom of expression by comprehensively reviewing media legislation and ensuring restrictions on internet resources comply with the principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity and proportionality and are subject to judicial oversight.

ODIHR deployed an Election Observation Mission on 25 September 2024, which remained in the country until 3 November.

All 57 participating States across the OSCE region have formally committed to following up promptly on ODIHR’s election assessments and recommendations. A list of previous ODIHR recommendations and the extent to which they have been implemented so far can be found on p.23 of the report. ODIHR’s electoral recommendations database tracks the implementation of previous recommendations across the OSCE region.