Isolated Uzbekistan today headed to the polls to elect a president to replace late strongman Islam Karimov, with all signs pointing towards a comfortable victory for his long-serving prime minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
Voting at over 9,300 polling stations throughout the Muslim-majority Central Asian country with no tradition of competitive elections began at 0100 GMT and is expected to continue until 1500 GMT.
Mirziyoyev, who was appointed prime minister in 2003, became interim president following Karimov's death aged 78 in September after he suffered a reported stroke.
The heavy-handed autocrat's 27-year reign began in 1989 at the tail-end of the Soviet era, and was often criticised for abuses of human rights.
Representing the Liberal-Democratic Party that Karimov represented in the last presidential vote in 2015, Mirziyoyev is facing three other challengers in a bid to secure a five-year term.
But analysts note the other candidates are not critical of Mirziyoyev or the regime in the country bordering Afghanistan where Beijing, Moscow, and Washington all vie for influence.
"The format for Uzbek elections has not changed since Karimov's death because the regime has not had time to think of anything different," said Kamoliddin Rabbimov, an Uzbek political analyst who lives in France.
"If anything, efforts have been made to ensure other candidates are even more obscure because Mirziyoyev's stature among the population is not yet what Karimov's was," he told AFP.
"Uzbekistan has its own specific take on democracy. There will be no surprises here, unlike in America with Trump," he added.
An OSCE-led monitoring mission is expected to deliver its verdict on the vote at around 1000 GMT tomorrow.
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