Uzbekistan’s parliament appointed Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev as interim president on Thursday, a source who saw the written decision of the legislature told Reuters.
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According to Uzbekistan’s constitution, senate leader Nigmatulla Yuldashev would have taken over temporarily until early elections.
Presidential election in Uzbekistan will be held on December 4, the chairman of the Central Asian republic’s Central Election Commission said Friday, adding that the campaign kicks off immediately, Sputnik reports.
The vote comes after the death of long-time Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, who died last week at the age of 78.
Before his death, Karimov was one of two reigning presidents in Central Asia to have begun ruling his country before independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Mirziyoyev was born July 24, 1957.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev lay flowers at grave of late Uzbek President Karimov in Samarkand. “In any case, Inoyatov and Mirziyaev are political allies, and both men are former Karimov stalwarts: in the coming months, expect a great deal of continuity from the new regime”, she wrote. For now he remains, however, the second powerful figure in the country behind Rustam Inoyatov, who runs the main intelligence agency, she wrote.
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However, political analyst Andrey Saidov said Mr Mirziyoyev’s rise to the presidency was not certain as “he is not that popular among the people”.
