TAJIKISTAN: THE 2005 ELECTIONS AND THE FUTURE OF STATEHOOD

Abstract

On 13 December 2004 President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov signed a Decree on the next elections to Majlisi namoiandagon (Representative Assembly) scheduled for 27 February 2005 and the Majlisi milli (National Assembly) scheduled for 24 March (two chambers of the Majlisi oli, the Supreme Assembly).  The new election cycle brought in by the February elections to the already fully developed (where its form and structure were concerned) representative branch of power was expected to put an end to the revolutionary epoch to bring in sedate lifestyle and even routine functioning of the new, post-Soviet Tajik state that had on the whole taken shape: domination of the presidential form of government which had monopolized entire power and the most important political initiatives in the near and mid-term future. The parliament had lost some of its political weight to the same extent that the president was gaining his. In fact, the legislature had no role to play. The same fully applies to other CIS countries; the Russia under Putin was no exception. In this respect the form of statehood the republic has finally acquired and the evolution of parliamentarism in it are not unique. They reflect the processes and general regularities typical of all CIS countries at the present stage.
Throughout the 1990s people of Tajikistan were mainly concerned with political issues: any more or less large group of people gathered for any occasion from weddings to funerals was very soon engrossed in political discussions about the war, peace, and power struggle. Public opinion polls carried out on the eve of the 2005 elections, by the Zerkalo sociological center in particular, revealed that the keen interest in politics had been replaced in people’s minds with socioeconomic concerns. All political forces had not so much to convince the nation of their ability to address the social and political issues in the best and most effective way as to demonstrate the voters that much had already been done.
 None of the political parties resolved to join the race could compete with the People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan (PDPT) not only because its administrative resource was large. The PDPT, the party of power, had another obvious advantage in the person of its leader—President Rakhmonov.
His name has been firmly connected in the minds of an absolute majority with the main achievements of the independence period: end of the civil war, restored territorial integrity and national unity, a stronger state that no longer has to take the virtually independent former field commanders into account, economic growth by 10 percent in the last three to four years, etc.