Voting underway in Uzbekistan's presidential election

Mirziyoyev has been credited for launching what he calls a "New Uzbekistan", ending a decades-old system of forced labour and introducing limited media freedom. 
He came to power in 2016 after the death of his mentor, dictator Islam Karimov, who ruled the Central Asian country for 27 years. 
Mirziyoyev has presided over an unprecedented boom in foreign tourism in the country that borders Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and counts China and Russia among its partners. 
But as his first term ends, the 64-year-old is struggling to counter impressions that his government is sliding back towards the habits of his long-reigning predecessor. 
The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have also blunted his initial economic achievements, with unemployment rife amid sharp rises in living costs. 
Zera, a 55-year-old woman who was part of a slow trickle of mostly middle-aged and elderly voters casting their ballots at a high school in the capital Tashkent on Sunday, said she backed Mirziyoyev, but was worried about the situation over the border in Afghanistan.
"This country worries me a lot now that (the Taliban) has taken over," she told AFP, only giving her first name. "The whole world warred with them and nothing good came of it. Can we be their friends? I am not sure." 
A 45-year-old man who also only gave his first name, Georgy, said he had voted "against everyone, including him" -- a reference to Mirziyoyev.
"I don't like any of these choices," he said.
Mirziyoyev cast his own vote at a polling station on Tashkent's outskirts where he appeared alongside wife Ziroatkhon Hoshimova and their three children.
The strongman smiled as he posed for photographs before dropping his vote in the ballot box but did not address the press. 
Voting across the landlocked country of 34 million people began at 8:00 am local time (0300 GMT) and will last until 8:00 pm (1500 GMT).