Tajikistan parliamentary voting sullied by pressure on opponents

[WorldNews]

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The ruling People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan (PDPT) is expected to sweep parliamentary voting Sunday in the former Soviet republic in polling tainted by complaints of pressure from opposition parties. The tightly-controlled Central Asian state's election commission declared the vote valid at roughly 1000 GMT, when it said that almost 75 percent of the 4.3 million electorate had voted. The country's 62-year-old President Emomali Rakhmon, who chairs the PDPT, cast his vote early in the day but did not address the media. Muhiddin Kabiri, leader of the largest opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), told AFP that "total pressure" had been applied on its candidates, more than half of whom failed to get registered to stand in the parliamentary vote.

 

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