It’s tough for opposition parties to break into parliament

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Second of two parts

DUSHANBE – As the country prepares for its February 28 elections, one question on people’s minds concerns the matter of why opposition candidates seldom have a real shot at winning seats.

The answer depends on whom you ask.

According to political analyst Saimiddin Dustov, the real Tajik opposition is disorganized, and thus ineffective.

“In the republic, there are many disapproving constituents, but these are all disparate groups that cannot articulate their demands and do not have the resources to legitimise their struggle and organizational structure, and therefore do not have support from voters”, Dustov said.

“The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (PIVT), which is regarded as an opposition party, hopes for the government’s loyalty to it, and thus again will not achieve anything besides two or three guaranteed seats in parliament”, Dustov said.

He said he believes all registered parties, with the exception of the SDPT, will be included in the new parliament. Dustov said the NDPT will receive the most seats, and predicts there will be five candidates from the Communist party, three from PIVT, two from the Economic Reform Party and one each from the Socialists and Democrats.

Social-Democratic Party of Tajikistan (SDPT) Deputy Chairman Shokirjon Khakimov said that the government is creating an artificial uncompromising opposition out of the SDPT:

“This is evidenced by the TsIK (Commission for Elections and National Referendums) being composed of representatives from all the parties except ours”, he said. Mukhibullo Dodojanov, chief of staff of the TsIK, said representation of all political parties in his group was recommended by international observers after the 2005 parliamentary elections.

However, he would not say why the SDPT was excluded, except to say it is the prerogative of the president and parliament to propose and affirm Commission membership. Representatives of international organisations and diplomatic missions accredited in Tajikistan have not commented on the state of the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“It is now too early to talk about how the elections will be held. There are many positive developments in this direction at the legislative level, but how well they will be applied in practice will be assessed after the opening of the official observer mission”, said a representative of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Dushanbe office.

The Central Election Commission said some 600 representatives from the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), OSCE and other countries will observe the elections.

The SDPT opposes the participation of CIS and SCO observers, saying their findings are always contrary to those of OSCE observers.

“(They) do not observe the elections, but spend their time being wined and dined by representatives of governmental structures”, said Social Democrat leader Rakhmatillo Zoyirov.

Almost all parties have chosen their candidates. The People’s Democrats, Social Democrats and Islamists each put forth 22 candidates. The Communist party, citing the economic crisis, has presented only ten parliamentary candidates. The Democratic Party nominated nine, the Socialists 12, and the Economic Reform Party 13.

Dodojanov said the TsIK has not yet received documents from any of the parties. “Besides that, the political parties must pay an election deposit for each nominated candidate of 200 times the official minimum wage (7, 000 TJS, or US$1, 600)”.

The election deposit will be returned to the candidates only if they are elected; the deposits of candidates who lose will be transferred to the treasury.

The present parliament was elected in February 2005, and includes three of eight officially registered political parties. The NDPT, led by President Emomali Rakhmon, holds 46 of 63 seats.

The Communist Party currently holds four seats and the PIVT has two. There are 11 members of parliament without party affiliation.

The Economic Reform Party, Social-Democratic Party, Socialist Party, Democratic Party and Agrarian Party failed to receive the minimum 5 percent of votes for party representation.

Correction: In part one of this story we inaccurately reported the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot. A candidate for office needs to get 500 signatures from residents of the electoral district they are running in. If they are on the party ballot they need no signatures.