Tajikistan - Politics 2005
Indirect elections were held for all seats in the National Assembly on the normal expiry of the members' term of office. The other members were appointed by the President on 25 March 2005. The strength of Rahmonov's influence was highlighted again when his People's Democratic Party won virtually all 63 seats in the lower house of parliament in the February 2005 general elections. The opposition Islamic and Communist parties won just a handful between them. Western observers said that the vote failed to meet international standards.
The second elections since the end of the civil war in 1997 were held for the House of Representatives (Majlisi Namoyandagon) on 27 February 2005. A total of 227 candidates ran in the elections in this mountainous country of 7 million inhabitants of whom 2.7 million were eligible to vote.
Before the elections the People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan (PDPT) led by President Emomali Rakhmonov controlled 65 per cent of the seats in parliament followed by the pro-government Communist Party of Tajikistan (CPT) which held about 20 percent. The only other party represented in parliament was the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) controlling 7.5 per cent of the seats. The remaining seats were held by independents. The IRPT was the main group of the United Tajikistan Opposition (UTO) which had signed a peace agreement on 27 June 1997 with President Rakhmonov. The IRPT is also the only legal Islamic party in Central Asia.
Many analysts doubted that the elections would be fair especially with regard to the registration of candidates. For the 22 seats based on party lists the PDPT and IRPT had 21 and 15 candidates respectively while other parties had fewer: nine for CPT four for the Democratic Party (DPT) five for the Socialist Party (SPT) and seven for the Social-Democratic Party (SDPT). Election officials announced on 14 January that any candidates receiving financial support from foreign organizations or individuals would be barred from taking part in the elections.
Access to voters was the main challenge for many candidates. Although newspapers and televisions are available many Tajiks simply cannot afford them. The country is the the poorest in Central Asia with over 80 per cent the population living below the poverty line and only six hours of electricity available per day during winter time. The National Association of Independent Mass Media in Tajikistan also claimed that authorities were limiting the media's access to and dissemination of information. Face-to-face campaigning was thus often the only way to reach voters. However even this method was difficult due to heavy snowfall across the country. While the two dominant political groups the PDPT and CPT had access to vehicles for their campaign opposition groups did not; they had to go to villages on horseback or even on foot.
A total of 18 000 international and local observers including 207 from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and 150 from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitored the elections. Both observer missions praised improvements in security compared to the 2000 election. But opinions were divided about the rest of the process. The CIS observers called the elections as "legitimate and free" while those of the OSCE criticized them for failing to meet many key OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections. For instance they noted that opposition representatives were not included in some election commissions.
Turnout was above 90 percent according to the central election commission although this figure was challenged by OSCE officials. Some opposition parties signed a petition to protest against irregularities calling for the elections to be declared invalid.
In the first round the PDPT obtained about 64 per cent of the votes or 63 seats the CPT received four seats while IRPT took only two. Independents won five seats. The three remaining seats were won by the PDPT in the run-off election held on 13 March.
Prior to the 2006 election, the Council of Ministers, which executes the decisions of thepresident, included two deputy prime ministers, 19 ministers, nine committee heads, and severalex officio members. After the election, Rakhmonov abolished 10 ministries and five statecommittees and reappointed Oqil Oqilov as prime minister. In the post-Soviet era, newspaper circulation has decreased sharply because of the high expenseof materials and the poverty of the population. As a result of government pressure and refusal of license renewals, no opposition newspapers were operating in the run-up to the 2006 presidential election.
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