Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Oct 11 (AFP/APP): Voting was underway in Tajikistan Sunday in a presidential election expected to pave the way for incumbent Emomali Rakhmon to become the longest-ruling strongman in the former Soviet space.
Few are anticipating any hiccups for Rakhmon as he closes in on three decades in power and looks to overtake Kazakhstan’s recently retired Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Central Asian longevity stakes. The Central Electoral Commission said the vote had passed the turnout threshold required for validation, with more than 70 percent of the nearly five million strong electorate casting votes.
Statements of turnouts are a feature of elections in this part of the world, however, and are impossible to verify. Authoritarian Rakhmon faces four other candidates, all viewed as token opponents, in his bid for a fresh seven-year term.
Polling stations opened at 6:00 am local time (0100 GMT) and are to close at 8:00 pm (1500 GMT), with results expected Monday. Voters in the capital Dushanbe interviewed by AFP overwhelmingly stated their intention to cast their ballot for Rakhmon — and struggled to name the other candidates.
Zarina Mamadnazarova, a 25-year-old woman who is currently unemployed, said she would vote for Rakhmon “because he is the best president, our national leader”. Another woman, 39, who preferred not to give her name, said Rakhmon had her vote “because the other candidates are not as strong”.
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