Of the six candidates announced by September 2007, only Dilorom Toshmuhamedova of the Justice Social Democratic Party had officially filed with the Electoral Commission; there were rumours that the other five (Suhbat Abdullayev, Akbar Aliyev, Abdullo Tojiboy O‘g‘li, Axtam Shoymardonov and Jahongir Shosalimov) have been pressured into running to make Uzbekistan appear more democratic than it really is.

[5] On 19 November, the Chairman of the Central Election Commission, Mirza-Ulug‘bek Abdusalomov, announced that the candidacies of Karimov, Toshmuhamedova (the first woman to run in an Uzbek presidential election), Asliddin Rustamov of the Uzbekistan People's Democratic Party, and Akmal Saidov (who was nominated by a citizens' group) were approved.

Aside from Karimov, the other three candidates approved by the Commission are considered friendly towards the government, and their participation was criticized as window-dressing for an election in which there was no genuine opposition.

[7] While the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had a team of 21 observers in the country, it officially considered the elections "pointless due to the obvious limited nature of the competition".

[9] Karimov was sworn in for his new term on 16 January 2008, saying that he would "mobilize all my power, knowledge and experience to fully implement all our priority goals set out in the election program".