PARTY BUILDING IN TAJIKISTAN

Parviz MULLOJANOV

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Parviz Mullojanov, Political scientist, Director of the Public Committee for Promoting Democratic Processes (Dushanbe, Tajikistan)

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Party building in a genuinely democratic society appears to be a rather simple affair: the people elect political parties, and the one that receives the majority of votes forms the government and determines the priorities of state policy until the next election. So, ideally, political parties are voluntary organizations which form a bridge between the people and the government, thus creating an efficient system along the lines of people-party-government. In so doing, the parties that lose the election create the opposition with the confidence that the government system itself guarantees their right to engage in political activity.

Real party building looks much more complicated, particularly in countries like the CIS states where democracy is incomplete or still developing. The former Soviet republics began from the same starting point, they all rejected the totalitarian Soviet-style system dominated by one party and a single ideology. But during the past fourteen years, each country of the Commonwealth has taken certain steps toward democracy. For example, whereas Turkmenistan and Belarus have simply made cosmetic changes to the old Soviet system of governance, in Ukraine and Georgia political parties are already capable of having a significant impact on the election results.

But none of them have yet been able to make the transition to the above-mentioned formula of people-party-government. Across the board, the formation of parties and party building have…………………..

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