According to the latest news coming from Uzbekistan, the circle of candidates for presidency is becoming narrower from day to day. Two out of six candidates are already out of the process. They are candidates of two relatively small political parties – Hurshid Dustmuhammad slated by Uzbekistan National Revival Democratic Party, and Ahtam Tursunov - National Democratic Party “Fidokorlar”. These parties could not go ahead in the pre-election process, as they failed in collecting 5% of electorate’s signatures for the support of their candidates.

According to the information given by the Central Election Committee, the number of electorate in Uzbekistan is 16,297,400 people. Little math and we find out that 5% of this number is 814,870. So, it means that above-mentioned candidates failed in collecting this amount of signatures. These parties have their offices almost in all regions of the country and it is really strange that they could not collect this amount of signatures for the support of their candidates. Only relatives of the candidate, taking into consideration the Uzbek way of life (family clans), could make about 5 thousand. However, it becomes clear when we consider that current president Islam Karimov, who is also running for another term (7 years), will do everything to stay in his position. In some degree, we can say that Hurshid Dustmuhammad and Ahtam Tursunov are really lucky for not gaining enough support from their electorate . Taking into consideration the experiences of the previous presidential elections (2000), when the candidates that contested with Karimov later left politics, these two outsiders now have a chance to stay in Uzbek political arena.

The rest four candidates have successfully overcome the 5% barrier and submitted their documents to the Central Election Committee. They are Dilorom Tashmuhamedova – “Adolat” (Justice) Social-Democratic Party, Asliddin Rustamov – Peoples Democratic Party, current president Islam Karimov- Liberal Democratic Party, and Akmal Saidov – slated by the initiative group of voter.

Even though the results of the elections are known beforehand, there are different views about the process of elections. According to Uznews.net Information Service, all four candidates have different chances to take part in the upcoming elections.
It was obvious that not every candidate would manage to get to the home stretch of the race.

For example, UzLiDeP’s candidate guaranteed the party’s participation in the final stage and victory in it, whereas the PDPU was saved by its status of parliamentary opposition.

Dilorom Tashmuhamedova was insured by her status of the only female candidate, while Akmal Saidov is the only independent candidate.

Erk Democratic Party assumes that two more candidates will be dropped out and only two people will make it to the elections.

The committe, the members of which are mostly pro-governmental, will «analyse» the documents and the Central Election Committee will offiially announce how many candidates are given a «green light». It is possible that two out of four candidates will be dropped out for, say, fake electorate signatures.

Analysts say that in elections Islam Karimov slated by the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbeksitan will contest with x-person, and gaining «absolute majority» of votes will win the presidential elections.

In Uzbekistan it is really hard to make any predictions, especially when it comes to politics. Lets just wait and see what happens next.