Uzbekistan’s acting president wins election overwhelmingly

Uzbek election officials say that acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has overwhelmingly won a tightly controlled presidential election. Mirziyoyev garnered 88.61 percent of the vote, according to the head of the Central Election Commission. Murza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov said in Tashkent Monday that Mirziyoyev got 15.9 million votes. Sunday’s poll was the first election in the country since the August death of Islam Karimov, who ruled for 27 years. Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous nation, is rich in natural resources and borders Afghanistan, making it of strategic interest to Russia, the US and China.