Tashkent, March 29 (IANS): Voting for presidential election in Uzbekistan began on Sunday as polling stations opened at 6 a.m.

More than 20 million voters are to elect a new president for the next five-year term, Tass news agency reported citing Uzbekistan’s Central Electoral Commission.

The commission’s head, Mirza-Ulugbek Abdusalomov, said there are 9,058 polling stations, including 44 at Uzbek embassies abroad. Two polling stations have opened in Russia in the capital Moscow and Novosibirsk in Siberia.

Preliminary vote results will be announced on Monday. There will be no exit polls, Abdusalomov explained.

Four candidates are in the fray in this year's election. They include incumbent President Islam Karimov of the Liberal Domocratic Party, Khatamzhon Ketmonov of the People’s Democratic Party, Akmal Saidov of the Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, and Narimon Umarov of the Social Democratic Party.

Some changes have taken place in the election procedures in Uzbekistan since 2007 when the last presidential election was held. No independent candidate can contest while the presidential tenure has been reduced from seven to five years.

If more than two candidates run in the election and neither of them gains more than half of the votes, a re-run vote takes place. The two candidates who enlist the biggest support in the first round will run in the repeat vote.

More than 33 percent of voters registered in the voters' lists are expected to turn up for Sunday's voting.

The election is being monitored by representatives of foreign countries and international organisations, including the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as well as the heads of diplomatic missions of South Korea, China, the US and several European countries.