European election monitors in Uzbekistan have condemned Sunday\'s parliamentary elections, saying they did not meet international standards. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said the vote was neither competitive nor transparent. It said the five parties taking part were so similar that voters were deprived of significant choice. All of them supported President Islam Karimov, the powerful leader who has run Uzbekistan for almost 20 years. The OSCE statement gives formal voice to what many Uzbeks say in private. The authorities, it says, \"failed to ensure a pluralistic, competitive and transparent election\". It also points out that almost two-thirds of potential candidates were not allowed to stand and that the justice ministry refused to let the OSCE see its case files. The OSCE had only a very small team of monitors here because of Uzbekistan\'s poor electoral record, so this statement focuses on the big political picture, rather than how the day went at the polls. The OSCE\'s remarks will come as no surprise to the Uzbek authorities. President Karimov even anticipated them in a speech on Sunday, when he said Europe and Asia were quite different and one should not preach to the other. He pointed out that Uzbekistan is only in the OSCE by historical accident, because it was once a Soviet republic. To pre-empt such criticism, the government invited its own election monitors, most of them guests regarded as friends of Uzbekistan or Russian-led observers from the former Soviet Union. They have given a glowing report of events, the Russian team praising the election as fair, legitimate and transparent. (BBC)