Uzbek Political Parties Form New Bloc

Uzbekistan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDPU) and the Milli Tiklanish (National Revival) party have announced that they have formed what they called a Bloc of Democratic Forces in parliament.

The bloc was founded March 14 at a joint session of the factions of the two parties in the lower house of parliament, the Oliy Majlis.

The new bloc now represents a majority in parliament since the LDPU won 52 seats in the December parliamentary elections and Milli Tiklanish won 36 seats.

The Oliy Majlis has 150 seats.

According to participants at the March 14 joint session, the bloc will help solve priority program tasks, determined in the preelection platforms of the parties.

Uzbekistan has four political parties. All are represented in parliament.

All are pro-presidential parties that President Islam Karimov has said previously are so similar he sometimes could not tell the difference between them.

Based on reporting by UzDaily.com and Gazeta.uz