Text of report by Tajik radio on 1st March

The Central Electoral and Referendum Commission gave a news conference
today. Here is a report by our correspondent.
[Correspondent] The chairman of the republic's Central Electoral and
Referendum Commission, Mirzoali Boltuyev, opened the news conference and
said that the election of a professional parliament had been the first
election to be held in sovereign Tajikistan with the involvement of various
political parties and with a choice of candidates. Without doubt, this
shows movement towards democracy, freedom of choice and pluralism, [he
said].

Mirzoali Boltuyev then announced the preliminary results of the elections,
which had been held in 41 electoral districts. According to the preliminary
reports, 2,583,919 out of the total of 2,771,528 voters, or 93.23 per cent
of the electorate cast their ballots. Deputies to the Assembly of
Representatives were elected in 28 electoral districts. Runoff elections
will be held on 12th March in the following 13 electoral districts:
Kofarnihon, Fayzobod, Lenin, Vanj, Khorugh, Vakhsh, Yovon, Vose, Muminobod,
Mastchoh, Asht, Uroteppa and Konibodom.

Six political parties, the Justice Party, the Democratic Party, the
Communist Party, the Islamic Rebirth Party, the Socialist Party and the
People's Democratic Party contested 22 seats in the Assembly of
Representatives by party lists, Mirzoali Boltuyev said. He continued:

[Boltuyev] You know that to get through these parties were to pass a
five-per cent barrier. Three political parties managed to overcome the
five-per cent barrier. They collected the following number of votes: the
People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan received 1,666,909 or 64.51 per
cent of votes, the Communist Party of Tajikistan - 533,066 or 20.63 per
cent of votes and the Islamic Rebirth Party of Tajikistan - 193,532 or 7.48
per cent of votes.

[Correspondent] The [remaining] three parties, which run for the Assembly of
Representatives, failed to overcome the five-per cent barrier. The
Democratic Party of Tajikistan collected 90,979 votes, 3.52 per cent of the
vote, the Justice Party of Tajikistan - 34,890, or 1.35 per cent, and the
Socialist Party of Tajikistan - 32,223 votes, 1.24 per cent.
Thus, 28 candidates were elected from single-seat districts and 22
candidates on party lists, which means that a total of 50 candidates have
been elected to the Assembly of Representative of Tajikistan's Supreme
Assembly.

One can say that the elections to the Assembly of Representatives were held
in line with the constitution and in a peaceful atmosphere and were
democratic and fair.

The voting and vote-counting were monitored by representatives of political
parties, candidates' proxies and journalists. A total of 172 international
observers monitored this important election process.
As elections of this kind are quite a new thing for our country, naturally,
there were some irregularities, but most of them were of a technical
character. The head of the joint UN and OSCE [observer] mission, Mr Zenon
Kuchciak, talked about this at the news conference. Mr Kuchciak and other
observers's advice is, undoubtedly, very important for the development of
our election system, Mirzoali Boltuyev said.

At the end of the news conference Mirzoali Boltuyev answered many questions
from local and foreign journalists.

It should be said that a new era will begin in Tajikistan's political and
legislative life once a professional parliament begins to work in
Tajikistan.

Source: Tajik Radio first programme, Dushanbe, in Tajik 0800 gmt 01 Mar 00
BBC Mon CAU 010300/** BB/MI