Politics

March 5, 2010

Parliamentary Elections in Tajikistan: Show of Democracy or Dictatorship?


Parliamentary elections in Tajikistan with its ups and downs ended yesterday. Such an important event in most of the democratic and developed states would be widely publicized and numerous speeches, open discussions and live debates would be held all across the boundaries in order for people to get to know their candidates well, but in our country elections went pretty quick and unnoticed. 


Unfortunately, there was no equal opportunity for all parties in promoting their elections campaigns, so people were mostly unaware of their programs and campaigns. A few city hall meetings organized under strict control of Central Commission for Elections and Referendum and a last minute round table conducted by a foreign sponsored Radio Ozodi (Tajik Branch of RFERL) was a clear sign that the country needs a free public platform for political parties to come together and debate regularly. State and private TV stations, radios and newspapers as well as billboards in major cities had as usual disproportionately represented President Rahmon, who at the same time is the head of ruling People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan (PDPT).

Seems like our nation still believes that elections will neither be free nor transparent and no deputies in Majlis (parliament) will be courageous or capable enough to bring about changes to structure and quality of governing bodies in society. It is hard to blame them since everyone understands that no democracy can allow one person to stay in power almost 20 years and control both the legislative and judicial branches. For many it is like living in a shah state (kingdom) where the king and his family can do anything their heart desires. Obviously, democracy is the rule of people, not ruling and mulling the people. 




The result of “kingdom” is evident. The country is lagging behind in development, people are poor and officials have turned into robbers and beggars of foreign donors. The truth of human nature is that even the noblest and finest person in the world will become arrogant and selfish if allowed total power. Total power corrupts any person. Therefore, we are advised to have monitoring in any process, measure in any volume, and competition in any market. Until we are able to provide free and fair competition in matters of policy, economy, culture or society we won’t achieve significant results.


Although, I am not personally in favor of any political party in Tajikistan and in fact, wish to see someday a party emerge and commit to national revival and progress, if I would have traveled to New York or Washington on February 28 for the sake of promoting competition and balance, my vote would have gone to Islamic Revival Party (IRPT) and its chairman Mr. Kabiri.

Anyways, I was guessing this party will win several more seats in the new parliament than it had before. Possibly, out of 63 seats, 50 would go to PDPT, 5 to IRPT, 4 to communists, 1 to social democrats and 3 independents. But, according to CCER’s latest data, over 80% of voter participated in elections and the preliminary counting of votes shows the following breakdown of votes: PDPT - 71,69 %, IRPT - 7,74 % Communist Party - 7,22 %, Agrarian Party - 4,86 %, Economic Reforms Party 4,69 %, Democratic Party - 0,84 %, Social Democratic Party - 0,72 % and Socialist Party - 0,47 %.

I guess I was wrong, but CCER always to astonish people with numbers it comes up so quickly. My question is how so little known and “fresh from the government’s oven” as Agrarian and Economic Reform parties could win almost 10% of the votes, more than the combined votes of Social Democratic and Islamic Revival parties, most outspoken opposition parties? This is what happens when no independent observers are allowed in actual vote counting process. We, the citizens, may vote ten times under strict public view and outside monitoring, but does it matter if no one watches whether CCER counts them correctly and fairly or not?