Tajikistan’s IRPT under ‘total pressure’ ahead of polls
The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) says the government has started a crackdown on its politicians ahead of the upcoming parliamentary polls.
Mukhiddin Kabiri, the IRPT chairman, said Sunday that the government in Dushanbe has ratcheted up harassment of its 42,000 members in the run-up to the March elections.
“I would say our party is currently experiencing total pressure, especially in the country’s provinces,” said Kabiri, who heads the only legal faith-based opposition party in the post-Soviet state, adding, “Elections are problematic in Tajikistan but we did not expect difficulties to this extent.”
Kabiri said he believes that permitting faith-based parties within secular systems is “one of the main ways to combat the growth of radicalism.”
He further said multiple fake Facebook accounts have been set up in his name with the aim of “blackening” the party’s image.
Currently IRPT has only two seats in the 63-seat people’s assembly, the lower house in a bicameral legislature.
More than half the party’s 160 proposed candidates for the parliament were not allowed to register, while only 196 of its 720 candidates qualified to take part in the vote.
The electoral officials told many would-be candidates that they had failed mandatory tests in the Tajik language -- the state language that most Tajiks know perfectly.
In January, the IRPT’s press secretary, Mahmudzhon Faizrakhmonov, complained of “pressure on our members in the regions from representatives of various government structures.”
Earlier this month, the party filed a complaint to the Central Electoral Commission after the country’s state-appointed chief Mufti, Saidmukkaram Abdulkodirzoda, said that it should remove the word “Islamic” from its name.
Abdulkodirzoda claimed that the IRPT’s candidates could be telling people that a vote for the party was a vote for Islam.
Tajikistan, the mainly Muslim but secular country, has been led by strongman President Emomali Rakhmon since 1992.
Rakhmon’s National Democratic Party of Tajikistan is expected to sweep the polls, which will be contested by eight parties.
The Tajik leader, who has a strong sway over media in the country, is worried about the growing wave of religious adherence among the eight-million population.
Rakhmon secured a seven-year term with over 80 percent of the vote following the presidential elections held in late 2013.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the vote lacked “pluralism and genuine choice.”
YH/MKA/HMV
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