Tajik Opposition Says Poll Rigged
As expected, the People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan won a clear majority in the February 28 parliamentary election, but its opponents are convinced the count was rigged.
Tajik Opposition Says Poll Rigged
As expected, the People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan won a clear majority in the February 28 parliamentary election, but its opponents are convinced the count was rigged.
Mehrangiz Tursunzoda reports on complaints by opposition parties that procedural irregularities during and after the polls were on a sufficient scale to skew the result in favour of the president’s party.
Islamic Rebirth Party Muhiddin Kabiri says that “all independent observers say that we got in the region of 35 to 40 per cent of the vote. And that was confirmed at those polling stations where we had our own members [sitting on election bodies], and that’s at about five to seven per cent of the total number.”
He says the results were rigged after voting ended, because the authorities realised that opposition parties had actually performed well on election day, especially among younger voters.
The Communists, who like the Islamic party won two seats in parliament, are certain they would have won far more if the count had been fair. So are the Social Democrats, who believe they won at least 12 per cent of the vote, whereas they were awarded less than one per cent, which ruled out their chances of a seat.
External assessments of the election fall into two categories – observer groups sent by former Soviet republics gave Tajikistan a clean bill of health, while western monitors expressed disappointment at the abuses they observed.
“Our general impression is that the electoral campaign itself and the ballot went off fairly quietly,” said Sergei Lebedev, who led the observer mission sent by the Commonwealth of Independent States. “It was all organised punctiliously. There were some minor irregularities that observers noted at polling stations, but they were isolated case and of course could not have affected the final results.”
Artis Pabriks, the former Latvian foreign minister who led the OSCE observer mission, said that “one in every four polling stations received a negative assessment”.
“Very grave irregularities were noted, including people voting on behalf of others and on behalf of their families, and so on. It is also very sad to relate observers from political parties were granted insufficient access to the elections.”
