Tajiks vote as incumbent gears up for long reign
Source: Reuters
By Maria Golovnina DUSHANBE, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Tajiks vote on Monday in an election condemned by the opposition as unfair but certain to extend President Imomali Rakhmonov's long rule by a third seven-year term. In power since 1992, Rakhmonov has been criticised by the opposition and Western observers for failing to organise a fair contest in his ex-Soviet Central Asian state. The hard-line leader, who won the last election in 1999 with 96.4 percent, has been derided for cracking down on civil rights and jailing dissidents. He faces four obscure rivals from state-friendly parties, a line-up condemned by the opposition as a barely concealed attempt to create a semblance of a democratic contest. Opposition parties are boycotting the election in protest. Tajikistan was wrecked by a brutal civil war in the 1990s and has never held an election judged free and fair by Western monitors. On Saturday the opposition, fragmented and small, held a rare street protest against what they see as a Soviet-style show election. Three activists were arrested after the rally and jailed for 15 days. The overall mood was calm ahead of the vote in a country where most people want nothing more than peace. More than 100,000 people died in the civil war in which Rakhmonov's government fought against an alliance of Islamists and liberals. Dushanbe's broad boulevards, lined with grand Soviet era buildings, were festooned with Tajik flags and banners urging people to vote actively. A large portrait of Rakhmonov, one of the few visible elements of his otherwise uneventful campaign, has disappeared from a building in central Dushanbe in line with election rules banning political advertisements on election day. Rakhmonov cancelled his last pre-election speech on television on Saturday, saying Tajikistan's 3.2 million eligible voters were sufficiently aware of his election programme. The 54-year-old leader has changed the constitution to allow himself theoretically to stay in power until 2020. Yet Rakhmonov appears to be genuinely popular. Most Tajiks polled by Reuters in Dushanbe and nearby towns said they linked him to stability and peace in their impoverished nation. But more outspoken Tajiks said Rakhmonov had brought few improvements to the country where two thirds of the 7 million population still live below the poverty line. "Life is tough. My husband is in hospital, I have seven children, I have to repay debt," Idigul, a woman in her 40s, said as she fried meat pies in an open air market in the town of Nurek. "I am not going to vote. I have no time, and it's not going to change anything anyway."
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