Free and Fair, No Joke
Politics and Society, Tajikistan98 Comments
Tajikistan is moving ahead towards what can be the countrys first genuinely free and fair presidential election. For Emomali Rakhmonov, who on September 23 was unanimously nominated by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party to seek another term in the office, the election scheduled for November 6 is a mere formality.
Tajikistan is no different from its neighbors in Central Asia in terms of rich history of falsified elections. Fraud and manipulation have been general features of all elections held in the country since independence. One important characteristic however distinguishes Tajikistans presidential elections: their outcome has never been falsified; only the numbers were manipulated. It was done mainly due to the regions inviolable tradition of granting no less than 90 percent of the vote to the leader, with Turkmenistans Sapharmurat Niyazov setting the record of 99 percent.
President Rakhmonov, in office since 1994 and now having a chance to stay for at least seven other years after amending the constitution, has never had much problems with winning the election. The problem was the percentage of votes that had to be no less than what his neighbors in the region were getting. This is where election manipulation came from: the winner got everything, including the votes of his opponents.
This years elections however will serve as a benchmark in Tajikistans modern history as the first presidential elections free of any manipulation. The reason for that is that the incumbent president has no opponents except on paper.
Tajikistans leading political parties have silently allowed Rakhmonov to stay in the office without any struggle at all. Islamic Revival Party, Democratic and Social-Democratic parties announced this week that they will not participate in the upcoming presidential election.
With the Communist Party nominating perhaps the most unfamiliar to the voters candidate, Socialist party divided by two rival factions and the two youngest parties nominating their unknown leaders, the November election will be a mere formality.
While international election watchdogs prepare to deploy their observers in Tajikistan, Emomali Rakhmonov has a chance to be re-elected through the procedure of genuinely free and fair election and get his no less than 90 percent of the vote in a fair play.
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Alexander, welcome – interesting post!
It all reminds me a bit of Kazakhstan, where (although irregularities did exist) Nazarbayev took home a safe 91% of the vote – and people agree that this generally reflects the voters’ decision. There were simply no real alternatives to tick on the ballot.
It is difficult to compare elections in different countries, but do you think Tajikistan’s elections will ‘even’ be fairer than the December 2005 presidential poll in Kazakhstan?
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Ah, by the way, Rakhmonov also seems to take home a relatively safe victory on our blog poll: http://tajikistan.neweurasia.net/?p=78
His party is currently at 44% of total votes.
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[...] Free and Fair, No JokeNeweurasia.net, Europe - 11 hours agoTajikistan is moving ahead towards what can be the country s first genuinely free and fair presidential election. For Emomali … [...]
[...] Free and Fair, No JokeNeweurasia.net, Europe - 11 hours agoTajikistan is moving ahead towards what can be the country s first genuinely free and fair presidential election. For Emomali … [...]
[...] Alexander Sadikov says that Tajikistan’s upcoming presidential election will be free and fair because the sitting president faces no real opponents. [...]
Ben, I really do believe that Tajikistan’s upcoming presidential election will be pretty fair and the results will reflect the voters’ will. Unfortunately, I cannot compare Tajikistan’s elections with Kazakhstan’s ones because I do not have adequate information about the latter.
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Ben,
I think Kazakh opposition was still hoping to get more than just 6% of the votes. They already had one candidate from opposition in February 2005, and were campaigning a lot. People knew Tuyakbai. Many were suprised by Nazarbayev’s 91%. So I think it’s quite different.
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[...] Tajikistan: Following up on Vadim’s ‘Fly Tajik Air’ post recently, Craig and Simon of the Silk Route Project went through the ordeal of buying a one-way ticket from Khorog in Gorno-Badakhshan to the capital Dushanbe. The spectacular flight compensated for the tedious and Kafkaesque ticket purchasing procedure. On neweurasia, Alexander thinks that the upcoming presidential elections will be free and fair because incumbent Rakhmonov has no opponent to fear. On the same blog, Highlander reports that golden teeth are about to get outlawed in Tajikistan. [...]
It is not about the elections it is about the situation in Tajikistan. It is wholly unfair. Rahmonov created such an environmnet where everything seems fair, which is unfair.
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Vadim,
Yes, this is unfair, and we cannot do much to change it for the moment. And those who can – powers with influence in the region – are more concerned with stability that Rakhmonov’s administration has to offer.
This is also unfair, eh?
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[...] With the upcoming presidential election scheduled for November 6, things can change. Tajikistan has a chance to run the election that will be appraised by the ODIHR as free and fair. [...]
[...] With the upcoming presidential election scheduled for November 6, things can change. Tajikistan has a chance to run the election that will be appraised by the ODIHR as free and fair. [...]
[...] By reversing their decision, Tajik authorities sent an important message to the international community. In particular, they reconfirmed that the incumbent Emomali Rakhmonov is determined to be re-elected for another term through the procedure of free and fair election with its legitimacy unquestioned by international observers. Besides, the reversal showed the authorities resolve to avoid confrontation with the international community when possible. [...]
[...] Finally, the third surprise is that Emomali Rakhmonov has probably lost a unique opportunity to conduct the first genuinely free and fair elections that could have stood the harshest international standards. Prior to the vote, many people (including me) sincerely believed that Rakhmonov, well aware of his great popular support, will conduct a model election for the consumption of international watchdogs and foreign donors. While international observers have not yet presented their findings on the election, preliminary information suggests that the yesterdays vote fell short of meeting key international election standards. It is very unclear yet whether Rakhmonov did not or could not ensure the free and fair election. It is very likely that he tried hard to do so, but the long-standing tradition of election manipulation prevailed. For anyone dissatisfied with the conduct of the vote, Rakhmonov had a message that western values were not always applicable to elections in eastern countries: Tajikistan is a country with more than 99 percent of the population being Muslim. We have a different culture, and this has to be taken into account As for the OSCE commitments, not a single country in the world has ever held an election that completely met the requirements set by OSCE. [...]
intresting text , Thanks !
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Free and Fair, No JokeNeweurasia.net, Europe – 11 hours agoTajikistan is moving ahead towards what can be the country s first genuinely free and fair presidential election
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Free and Fair, No JokeNeweurasia.net, Europe – 11 hours agoTajikistan
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With the upcoming presidential election scheduled for November 6, things can change. Tajikistan has a chance to run the election that will be appraised by the ODIHR as free and fair.
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Free and Fair, No JokeNeweurasia.net, Europe – 11 hours agoTajikistan is moving ahead towards what can be the country s first genuinely free and fair presidential election
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It is not about the elections it is about the situation in Tajikistan. It is wholly unfair. Rahmonov created such an environmnet where everything seems fair, which is unfair.
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It is not about the elections it is about the situation in Tajikistan. It is wholly unfair. Rahmonov created such an environmnet where everything seems fair, which is unfair.
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I think Kazakh opposition was still hoping to get more than just 6% of the votes.
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It is difficult to compare elections in different countries, but do you think Tajikistans elections will even be fairer than the December 2005 presidential poll in Kazakhstan?
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