Election of the Weekend III: Tajikistan

This weekend, the citizens of Tajikistan will elect a new Assembly of Representatives. This body contains 41 single member district seats, which will go to a runoff if necessary to get to 50%+1, and 22 seats via proportional representation in a single nation-wide constituency with a 5% threshold. The Assembly of Representatives serves with an upper house, the National Assembly, which will be indirectly election on March 28th. (25 National assembly seats are elected by local governments and 8 are appointed by the President.)

The first two elections covered this weekend were borderline for coverage because they aren’t national elections in proper, recognized countries. This one was borderline because it’s a stretch to call what’s happening here anything particularly close to a democratic election. Central Asia is a very authoritarian region and with the possible exception of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan may be the worst. The president since 1994 and national leader since 1988, Emomali Rahmon’s power and authority in not in any question or under any meaningful threat from parliament. His party, the People’s Democratic Party, will almost certainly win a supermajority again, and most of the minor parties who stand a chance of entering parliament have pledged fealty to him as well. Insofar as there’s much support for political visions that clash with Rahmonist thought, it’s Islamic radicalism, and all such parties are banned. (Rahmon has imposed significant restrictions on religious teachings and practices in an effort to impose his deradicalized version of Islam as the national religion).

Death comes for us all, but it could be a while for Rahmon as he’s only 72. The future isn’t written but it’s difficult to envision a meaningful election taking place in Tajikistan while he still draws breath.