The presidential elections in Tajikistan on November 6 ended with victory of the incumbent president Emomali Rahmonov. This outcome, though, did not come unexpected for most observers. It was not clear until the last day of the election campaign whether the alternative candidate of Islamic Revival Party Davlat Usmonov would agree to take part in the election. Probably the main news in the recent elections is that formally the elections were held on alternative basis and leadership of United Tajik Opposition recognized the results of the elections.
The scandal events of the election campaign had confused and complicated the situation in the country. Three alternative candidates – Saifiddin Turayev of the Party of Justice (Adolatkhoh), Sulton Kuvvatov of democratic Party (Tehran platform) and Davlat Usmonov of Islamic Revival Party had faced, after being nominated, open counteraction of local authorities. And thus, by the moment of registration, the candidates could not collect the sufficient number of signatures – 145,000. By their opinion, that happened because of the local authorities, who created obstacles for the initiative groups of the candidates in collecting signatures. The candidates demanded that an extraordinary session of Majlisi Oli be convened, to discuss postponing of the presidential elections, and conducting elections under supervision of UN and OSCE. The central Commission for Elections and Referendum made concessions and had two times postponed the registration deadline – until 8th and then until 12th of October. On October 12, the CEC denied registration to the three candidates, for their failure to collect enough signatures. In response, United Tajik Opposition recalled its representatives from CEC and applied to Supreme Court. On October 21, Supreme Court annulled the decision of CEC in regard of Davlat Usmonov, and left it in force in regard of the other two candidates. On the other day, the CEC, by recommendation of Supreme Court, registered Davlat Usmonov as candidate for presidency. These decisions of the Court and CEC, disputable from legal point of view, had extremely complicated the situation. On one side, UTO and D.Usmonov did not recognize the decisions as fair and continued insisting on their demands. On the other side they did not refuse to take part in elections in written form.
A number of international organizations expressed their concern that the elections in RT could be held on non-alternative basis. Besides, the UTO recalled its representatives from Commission for National Reconciliation, which was capable of unpredictable outcomes.
In practically the last moment, on November 5, President of RT Emomali Rahmonov and leader of UTO Sayeed Abdullo Nuri managed to arrive to a mutually-acceptable solution. The sides signed the Protocol on political guarantees for preparation and conducting elections of Majlisi Oli of the Republic. In accordance with this Protocol, President and CNR are to provide for free, fair and democratic elections, observe principles of independence of CEC, include in it new representatives of UTO and ensure the 20% representation of parties and movements of UTO at district and local election commissions, obligatory certifying of voting bulletins by representatives of all political parties and movements. CNR promised to submit to President and Majlisi Oli the new law on election of parliament before November 20. This law has to foresee conditions for monitoring the election campaign by intiative groups and political parties. The protocol confirmed the role of OSCE, UN and the countries – guarantors of peace process in Tajikistan in organization and conducting the elections, which was defined by the General Agreement on Peace; competent authorities are to provide representation of all interested international organizations in monitoring of the elections.
Thus the two sides came to conclusion that it is necessary to improve the mistakes made at the presidential election campaign, which had negative effect on the international image of the Republic. The compromise, by opinion of majority of observers, is the result of pressure on behalf of various international organizations. For example, the OSCE in its statement of November 5 criticized infringement on rights of candidates at registration and at access to mass media. The European Union made a similar statement on November 3.
The Central Commission for Elections and Referendum published the final results of the elections on November 9. Out of the total number of 2,866,578 voters, 2,835,590 took part in the election (98.91%). 2,749,908 of them (96.97%) supported the candidacy of Emomali Rahmonov. The candidacy of Davlat Usmonov was supported by 59,857 people – 2.11%. 18,774 voting bulletins (0.66%) were recognized invalid.