Tajik strongman Rakhmon set to extend rule
October 11, 2020
Tajikistan's authoritarian president Emomali Rakhmon is expected to cement his grip on power after facing four token rivals in the former Soviet country's election for head of state on Sunday.
The 68-year-old has run the nation of 9.5 million people since 1992, a period that included a civil war.
He has gradually strengthened his grip and a 2016 constitutional reform removed a limit on the number of terms he could serve.
Although widely anticipated to secure another next seven-years in office, Sunday's vote attracted unusual attention after recent elections in two other ex-Soviet republics — Belarus and Kyrgyzstan — were disputed, sparking mass protests.
Read more: Press freedom in Tajikistan: Going from bad to worse
Voting to the sound of patriotic songs
The national anthem played through loudspeakers as many polling stations opened early on Sunday morning, followed by a selection of patriotic songs. Staff checked voters' temperature on entry and wore both face masks and shields.
Polling ended at 8 p.m. local time (1500 UTC/GMT) and according to the election commission, more than 70 percent of the nearly five million-strong electorate cast their ballots. The result is expected on Monday.
Rakhmon's four competitors are members of the docile lower house of parliament and have avoided criticizing their president, whose official title is "Founder of Peace and National Unity - Leader of the Nation."
Though they say they are in the race to win, their campaign staff privately admit they have little chance of garnering any significant vote count.
John Heathershaw, professor of international relations at Britain's University of Exeter, cited the example of candidate Abduhalim Ghafforov, now challenging Rakhmon for the third time.
"In 2006, he gained just over two percent, in 2013, just over one percent, so if he continues on that trajectory he will get very few votes this time," said Heathershaw.
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Rivals recall among voters low
Voters in the capital Dushanbe told AFP that they planned to, again, pick Rakhmon — many struggled to name the other candidates.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which independently monitored the vote, described parliamentary elections, which took place in March, in as lacking a fair competition.
"Genuine opposition has been removed from the political landscape," the OSCE said in an assessment published two months later.
The Central Asia-focused news outlet Eurasianet said in a report on Saturday that Tajikistan is "wholly undemocratic, so plebiscites are merely ceremonial." It noted that dissenters were either jailed or forced to flee.
Rakhmon is a former collective farm boss, who was elevated in 1992 to the chairmanship of the national assembly — a position equivalent to head of state — as fighting between pro-government forces and the United Tajik Opposition raged.
He was elected president in 1994 after the position was re-established, and re-elected in 1999, 2006 and 2013.
Though Tajikistan's economy has been growing 6% or more for the last decade, the coronavirus pandemic has taken the edge off that, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development predicting a 1% contraction this year, the first in 23 years.
In addition to hosting Russia's biggest military base abroad, Tajikistan has close economic ties with its former Soviet overlord, while China is another major donor, investor and creditor.
mm/rc (AFP, dpa, Reuters)