Tajikistan’s Presidential Elections: A Free and Fair Vote?

Regional experts appear split in their assessment of whether next week's presidential election in Tajikistan will be a free and fair vote. The trend appears to be toward giving cautious encouragement for the contested vote, while highlighting certain indications that the government is attempting to manipulate the process.

Some of the harshest criticism to date was heard at an October 26 hearing of the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe called "Democracy in Tajikistan: Preview of the Presidential Election."

Over the past ten years, the political opposition in Tajikistan has gone from having some representation in the government and parliament, to being completely shut out of the country's affairs, said Eric McGlinchey, a professor at George Mason University and an expert on Central Asia.

That trend could make for an election that increases instability by further consolidating power in the capital, he said.

Five candidates will be running for election: President Imomali Rahmonov (Peoples' Democratic Party); Ismoil Talbakov (Communist Party); Olimjon Boboev (Party of Economic Reform); Amir Karakulov (Agrarian Party), and Abdukhalim Gaffarov (Socialist Party).

Rahmonov is widely expected to win the vote for a seven-year presidential term. The 54-year-old Tajik leader, head of state since 1992 and president since 1994, has changed the constitution so that he can be president until 2020.

The opposition Democratic Party and Social-Democratic Party are boycotting the November 6 presidential vote. The remaining candidates have reportedly shied away from public criticism of the incumbent president. The Islamic Revival Party did not nominate a candidate. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive.]

By shutting the opposition out of positions of influence, Rahmonov is setting the stage for an alliance between regional "warlords" and Islamist politicians and, ultimately, for a repeat of the civil war that wracked Tajikistan during the 1990s, McGlinchey commented.

"People are going to look toward the regional strongmen, the local warlords, for getting things done, rather than to the national government," McGlinchey argued. "And this isn't so much a mobilization movement, as we might see with Islam; it's a state implosion movement and turning inwards."

The analyst outlined a scenario similar to that of the 1990s "where charismatic Islamic elites, regional strongmen, come together" out of a feeling that they are "ostracized from the current government and administration," he continued. "And I think we're already seeing signs of this."

Other panelists at the hearing, while acknowledging the vote's foregone conclusion, still said that the election represented a positive step for Tajikistan, given the country's turbulent past since independence.

Dennis de Tray, until recently the World Bank's Central Asia director and now vice president of the Center for Global Development, a Washington, DC think tank, said that the stability that has come with Rahmonov since the end of Tajikistan's civil war in 1997 has fueled a steady economic growth rate. The Tajik economy grew by 10 percent per year on average from 2002 to 2005, and is projected to grow eight percent this year and next year, he noted.

"I think that stability was, is and will continue to be an extraordinarily important underpinning of the economic performance that we've seen in Tajikistan," De Tray said.

In an October 12 interim report on the elections, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) outlined a list of lingering trouble areas for the vote.

Spotty media coverage appears one of the strongest drawbacks. Aside from a "limited number of independent media," the ODIHR report read, "[t]he media environment in Tajikistan is controlled by the Government, and the revocation of licenses and closure of printing houses have been used as a frequent tool to ensure self-censorship and lack of critical journalism." The government recently blocked access to several independent news sites, though access to some of them has since been restored.

Nonetheless, the report noted that "[w]hile concerns remain about the limited field of candidates, the election process could yet offer voters the potential for a degree of choice."

The OSCE will have an election observation mission made up of 14 long-term observers and 12 core team members. It has requested member states to send 100 short-term observers as well. Tajikistan's ambassador to Washington, Khamrokhon Zaripov, claimed that 18,000 local Tajik observers will also monitor the elections.

Anthony Bowyer, Central Asia program manager for IFES, a Washington-based international non-governmental organization that works on civil society development issues, also spoke favorably at the October 26 hearing about some of the preparations for the elections. Among the larger changes, he said, opposition candidates have been given free time for speeches on state television; political parties and non-governmental organizations can nominate members for district and precinct election commissions; and protocols for final results must be posted immediately at polling stations after they are compiled.

"As with any such improvement in procedures, of course, it will be important how in fact they are ultimately implemented and whether or not there exists the political will to do so," Bowyer added.

Speaking at the hearing, Ambassador Zaripov maintained that such a will does exist, and stated that he did not know why major opposition parties are boycotting the vote.

"We believe that [the] authorities of Tajikistan have done whatever is possible to create equal conditions for all candidates during the campaign process," Zaripov said. "Despite some criticism for small mistakes and several mistakes, the presidential election we expect be a serious step forward..."

Rahmonov's four opponents, he added, are "respected persons