MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. Western countries and their institutions ignore the calls of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to establish common standards to assessing and monitoring elections, CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev said.

"In many respects, our laws are more democratic than those of the Western countries that criticize us for an alleged lack of democracy," he told reporters at a briefing. "I cannot forget to mention that we have repeatedly proposed to our Western colleagues, in particular the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), to work out common approaches to assessing and monitoring elections. For some reason, our proposals have not met with support. They don’t respond, but still try to tell us how to organize elections," Lebedev pointed out.

At the same time, he emphasized that "the legislative system of Uzbekistan, most importantly, ensures the right of citizens to freely express their will."

Uzbekistan's parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 27. According to the Central Election Commission, a total of 375 candidates nominated by the regional offices of political parties will vie for seats in the Legislative Chamber (the lower house of the parliament), as well as 500 general candidates approved by the parties.