Training of election workers under way

Training of hundreds of polling station workers is under way in Tajikistan, ahead of parliamentary elections in the Central Asia state scheduled for 27 February. Mirzoali Boltuyev, head of Tajikistan's Central Election Committee (CEC), told IRIN in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, that the quality of parliamentary elections depended on preparatory work and highlighted the need to train election staff on how to run the poll fairly and legally. All election commissions employees, national observers and representatives of the local media are undergoing training organised by the National Association of Political Scientists (NAPS) in various parts of the country. The most recent sessions were held in the capital, Dushanbe, and in the central Gissar district over the past week. "It is necessary to create conditions and opportunities in the country to hold more open and democratic elections," Abdugani Mamadazimov, head of NAPS, told IRIN. "We need to raise the awareness of the public with regard to the legal bases of democratic elections, particularly in remote areas, where access to literature on legal issues is limited." According to NAPS, training was held in two phases. During the first stage, some election commission staff on the ground were trained in Dushanbe. Then they passed on the knowledge gained to colleagues from regional election bodies. “Overall, we conducted seminars for 20 out of 41 district election commissions aimed at training national observers for the elections,” Mamadazimov said, adding that training of workers from the remaining 21 commissions would be covered before the polls take place. “For the first time we managed to gather over 400-450 people from district and local polling bodies," he said. They attended presentations on international standards of democratic elections, including operating procedures of the local election commissions, election procedures and prevention of falsification of polling results, etc. NAPS's partners in organising the training are the United Nations Tajikistan Office of Peace-building (UNTOP) and the International Foundation of the Electoral Systems (IFES). Financial assistance worth some US $250,000 was provided by the embassies of the UK, the US, Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands. The funds were also used to publish literature, including over 40,000 copies of the Code of Laws on elections, manuals for polling district staff members and national observers. Some 3,000 polling stations and 41 district elections commissions will be operational in the country on the day of the parliamentary elections. Polling stations will be organised abroad in all embassies in the former-Soviet Central Asian republics. Polling stations will also be established in Moscow and in other major Russian cities, where many Tajik labour migrants live and work. February's parliamentary elections are viewed as an important benchmark for the democratisation of Tajik society, still reeling from a five-year civil war which devastated the country's economy and infrastructure and killed thousands in the process, before officially ending in 1997. Parliamentary elections held last year in neighbouring states, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, fell far short of international standards and were not free and fair. A joint United Nations - Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observer mission statement noted that the last parliamentary poll in Tajikistan, held on 27 Ferbruary 2000, failed to meet minimum democratic standards.The election was marred by flagrant fraud and manipulation of the vote, according to the US-based international rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW).