On November 26, 2018, a meeting of M.Abdusalomov, the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan with a delegation of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE / ODIHR) headed by the director Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir was held.

This meeting was conducted in the framework of the Asian Human Rights Forum on: “Results of 70 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: time challenges and reality”, which took place on November 22-23, 2018 in Samarkand.

The Chairman of the Central Election Commission informed the members of the delegation about cooperation with the OSCE / ODIHR, which dates back to 1999 – the active participation of its representatives as observers at elections in Uzbekistan.

It was noted that the proposals and recommendations of the OSCE / ODIHR mission are comprehensively studied and taken into account in order to further improve national legislation on elections, conduct open and free elections in accordance with democratic principles and international standards. An example of that is the development of a draft Electoral Code, as well as sending it to the OSCE / ODIHR for expertise. Following the results of the study the OSCE ODIHR and the Venice Commission’s delegation visited Uzbekistan in September for a preliminary review of the prepared conclusion and further discussion was held at the 116th plenary session of the European Commission for Democracy through Law in October in Venice (Italy) with the participation of the delegation of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Also with the participation of the OSCE ODIHR, the Venice Commission and other international institutions in the field of the electoral system an expert discussion of the draft Electoral Code was held at the international conference on November 16-17 in Bukhara.

Direct cooperation is also carried out in the framework of the participation of representatives of the CEC in the annual OSCE / ODIHR Human Dimension Implementation Meetings in Warsaw (Poland).

In turn, the OSCE / ODIHR Director highly appreciated the attention paid in the country to the issues of further improving the electoral system, in particular, the task set by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan on elaboration of draft Electoral Code, which was announced in the address of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the Oliy Majlis in December 2017.

The parties noted their readiness to continue bilateral relations and exchanged views on strengthening further cooperation, and also discussed the main areas of interaction between the Central Election Commission and the OSCE / ODIHR.

The meeting was attended by the OSCE Project Coordinator in Uzbekistan, John McGregor, Ambassador, Head of the Office of the OSCE / ODIHR, Senior Political Advisor Greta Gunnarsdottir, as well as senior staff of the Central Election Commission and representatives of the Office of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan.