Tajikistan’s strongman leader wins re-election

Tajikistan’s leader Emomali Rakhmon was re-elected with over 90% of the vote following a presidential poll in which he faced only token opposition.

The win will allow the 68-yearold strongman to pass three decades in power and overtake Kazakhstan’s recently retired Nursultan Nazarbayev as the former Soviet Union’s longest-ruling leader.

The Central Electoral Commission said that 90.9% of voters in Sunday’s poll had cast their ballot for Rakhmon who will secure a fresh seven-year term, according to preliminary results.

Turnout was over 85%, according to the Central Electoral Commission.

While disputed ballots in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and fellow former Soviet republic Belarus have triggered massive upheaval, similar developments appear unlikely in Tajikistan.

But Rakhmon and his government face unprecedented challenges after the weakest economy of all Soviet successor states joined others in being battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Over a million Tajiks are believed to work abroad, mostly in Russia.

Alex Kokcharov, a country risk research analyst at IHS Markit in London said remittances sent home dropped “by 15-25% year on year in the first half, according to differing reports”.

If a large number of Tajik workers “come back to Tajikistan from Russia where many have lost jobs in this year’s crisis, it will increase domestic instability – politically and economically,” said Kokcharov, whose company predicts a 6.5% contraction of the economy this year.

The bleak economic outlook also raises questions about how the government will be able to service external debt, equating to more than a third of GDP, with China a leading debt-holder.

But voters interviewed by AFP in the capital Dushanbe overwhelmingly said they intended to vote for Rakhmon, with many citing the importance of peace and stability more than two decades after the conclusion of a bitter civil war.

Safar Mallayev, 66, was voting for Rakhmon because of his “enormous experience”.

“Peace is the main thing. If we have peace it means everything will be alright,” Mallayev said. —