Country prepares for elections

Khabibullo Sharipov is the director of rural school number 47 in Shakhrinav district, 45 km north of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. In addition to his work as a teacher, he is also an election commission chairman for this Sunday's parliamentarian elections. During the 37 years of his professional life, he has repeatedly taken on this role as schools automatically become polling stations and teachers act as ballot officials at election times. But with the polls just days away, Khabibullo still had many questions on procedures: "Can a man working as a labour migrant abroad still vote after arriving at the electoral district a minute before the end of the elections?" "Is it a violation of confidentiality if a voter's relative fills out his or her form because of their poor eyesight?" "What should we do in the event of power cuts as electricity is intermittent in rural areas: two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening?" Sharipov received answers to such questions through training organised by the Washington-based International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), in conjunction with Tajikistan's Central Election Committee (CEC). Katrina Muller, the IFES mission chief in Tajikistan, told IRIN that the training for electoral district officials was provided by IFES and the United Nations Tajikistan Office of Peace-Building (UNTOP) trainers in 900 electoral districts of the republic. Elizabeth Little, an IFES programme consultant, said the training was important. "The majority of them have a great deal of election experience, which cannot be doubted. But all of them worked in the Soviet period, when election laws and procedures differed greatly from current ones." Given this, a number of international organisations have conducted seminars for election committee staff, voters and local observers in the former Soviet republic. In January, Tajikistan's CEC conducted a national seminar in Dushanbe for some 400 people. Financial support came from the US State Department and the governments of Sweden and the Netherlands. According to Abduali Toirov, a political affairs assistant from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the OSCE centre in Dushanbe held over 100 two-day seminars in various regions of the country in 2004 to train election committee members and executive officials of local administrations. The participants of the seminars familiarised themselves with the country's election legislation, as well as with international standards for conducting free and transparent elections. The OSCE centre in Dushanbe is currently holding such seminars for voters and election committee members in the Rasht Valley, about 250 km east of Dushanbe, in cooperation with local NGOs. Seminars are being held in the Nurabad, Tajikabad, Jirgital and Faizabad districts, and in communities of Rogun town. Despite efforts to make Sunday's polls more democratic and transparent, many international experts believe the current election campaigns leave much to be desired. In fact, many Tajik citizens neither know candidates' names nor their programmes and voter turnout remains doubtful. Many of the country's seven million inhabitants remain indifferent to the forthcoming elections, Toirov explained. "Perhaps, such a mood is related to the results of previous elections, with voters having the impression that their votes won't actually count. The majority of the population, especially the youth, does not know their rights and the significance of actively participating in the elections. Moreover, they do not know the consequences of disregarding the elections," he added. Rakhmikhudo Rakhmatulloev, one of the candidates' office coordinators from the Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan (SDPT), explained that during the last 14 years of independence, people had become passive and did not have trust in political parties. "They do not believe anybody and everyone relies just on themselves and their own strengths. Perhaps, it happens because no positive changes have been seen in the economic and political life of the republic during all these years." That sentiment is echoed on the streets. Bobo Akhmedov, a pensioner from Rudaki district, 25 km south of Dushanbe, told IRIN that the candidates had only themselves to blame if voters didn't know who they were. "They hang up black-and-white posters along the streets, but believe it is disgraceful to meet directly with the public to tell them about their programmes and to listen to the wishes of the people. Moreover, even if the candidates are shown on TV, we cannot watch them as electricity in the district is cut off after 8 o'clock in the evening," he said. This week, IFES was scheduled to hold a fair of political parties in Dushanbe and Kurgan-Tube, about 100 km of the capital, in an effort to gather voters and candidates together. At the fair, candidates from political parties and independent candidates have the opportunity to speak about their programmes and political platforms in an open forum. Representatives of the CEC, members of the IFES and parliamentarians were expected to take part in the fair and answer voters' questions.