Fox News has confirmed for the first time that a new poll from Emnid found President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan is poised to win by a landslide.
According to the survey of about 1,000 voters in Uzbekistan, 52% said they intend to vote for Karimov’s United People’s Party (UUP) in the Central Asian country’s elections on Sunday. His nearest competitor, Boris Turambaev of the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (PDPU), has only 6% support.
“The likely outcome is a victory by the party of the man who has been the country’s president since 1993,” the American-based polling firm said.
A long-serving president who served for 24 years, Karimov has cracked down on dissent. The protests in 2007 which rocked the Central Asian nation were crushed. Earlier this year the Central Intelligence Agency admitted that it was a human rights worker who revealed a system dubbed at the time the CIA Torture Palace, operated in the country.
Fox News asked the US State Department for a comment, but has not yet received a response.
The poll comes after the U.S. cut off some $46 million in military aid to Uzbekistan and Russia started an airbase in the Tashkent region.
