BIRTH AND DEATH OF DEMOCRACY IN TAJIKISTAN: MEMORIES AND REFLECTIONS ABOUT ELECTIONS FROM 1990 UNTIL 2016 CAP PAPERS 174 September 2016 Muhiddin Kabiri, Leader of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (Nahzat) Voting feasts during the Soviet period When we talk about elections in Tajikistan and consider the history of these elections, it is worthwhile to begin with the Soviet period. In the Soviet Union, elections were not considered independent democratic institutions, but rather a tool for consolidating the legitimacy of decisions made by the Communist Party. And therefore as a rule, elections for the Soviet Supreme Council took place only after the candidates had been predetermined by Moscow. Similarly, the candidates elected for the Supreme Council of the Republic of Tajikistan were the candidates nominated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Dushanbe, the republic’s capital. We never heard of alternative candidates; only one candidate was proposed for each position, so it is interesting that they continued to call them elections, since elections require a choice of at least two candidates. Nevertheless, during the Soviet period we did go to the polls and the whole country voted exclusively for single candidates. I do recall that our candidates for the Supreme Council of the USSR were not from Dushanbe. I remember that the candidate for our area was a Mr. Podgorny, whom no one had ever seen in Dushanbe or anywhere in Tajikistan; he was in Moscow. Nevertheless, people voted for him. I also remember that people went to elections as they might go to a concert: there was music all over town, and pilaf (the traditional rice dish) was served at each site, so elections turned into national holidays. Further, people considered it necessary to vote to fulfill one’s Soviet duty. Nobody was interested in the person that was to be elected or his policies. If people can remember elections during the Soviet period, this is what they remember as being positive: there were never any problems, no violence, and no fraud. The people’s perception of elections was shaken by experiences during the early years of independence. We can say that the first free elections in Tajikistan were the elections of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan in 1990, one of the last years of the Soviet Union. When parliamentary 1 elections were held for the first time in Tajikistan, independent candidates entered the Supreme Council, including the Kozikalon or Mufti of the Republic of Tajikistan, Hoji Akbar Turanjonzoda, and another spiritual leader from the Kulob region, Aidar Sharifzoda, as well as religious people from the Sughd oblast. Also elected to the Supreme Council were democratically minded candidates like the poet Bozor Sobir and Toirat Dzhobor, the founder and then leader of the Rastokhez movement, or Asliddin Sohibnazar, who later became leaders of democratic parties. Consequently, the parliament reflected various alternative points of view. Thus, I would consider the parliament during that time as strong and pluralistic. For ordinary people, processes in the parliament were broadcast on TV, and people were able to watch the deputies discussing various questions, follow the questions that were addressed, and observe the deputies’ suggestions. Politics became very interesting to everyone. The parliament from that time is still a popular part of Tajikistan’s history — a parliamentary system considered democratic and independent. I remember as a student that during those elections I was in the pre-election team of the poet Bozor Sobir, because he was born near my settlement and he was my distant relative. He was a famous poet and a freethinker; he had always been against the Soviet system, which is one reason people loved him. Several local officials ran as opponents, some even from the party apparatus, and all of them lost to the democratic candidates. The people had voted for the alternative candidate. However, many others who entered the parliament were officials or party figures, including the current president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, who was then chairman of a kolkhoz (collective farm), with the local prosecutor running as his opponent. Thanks to those democratic elections — the only democratic parliamentary elections that Tajikistan experienced — Rahmon became a deputy of the Supreme Council. The only free elections in Tajikistan Paradoxically, the first free parliamentary elections in Tajikistan took place in the last years of the Soviet Union, and this was the case in other Soviet republics as well. In Russia, for instance, many democratically-minded people were voted into the Supreme Council of Russia; both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan had many oppositional deputies elected. The first free presidential elections in Tajikistan did not take place until after independence, in late 1991. In November of that year, when there were several strong candidates for the presidency of Tajikistan, the Communist Party and the Soviet nomenklatura backed the former Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Tajikistan, Rahmon Nabiyev. Nabiyev had once held the top position in the country, but then was dismissed by Moscow for apparent mistakes. He was considered the most suitable figure because he was a native of the Sughd province, in the north, and therefore he had support from that region as well as from the Soviet nomenklatura, and they could also get support in the Kulob region in the south, which was part of an alliance with the northern part of the country. During those years we could feel a strong sense of regionalism, one of the remnants of the Soviet period. The opposition had proposed an independent candidate, Davlat Khudonazarov, the former chairman of the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR. Khudonazarov was from Badakhshan and he was an Ismaili when it came to his madhhab (religious affiliation). Despite this, the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, largely made up of Sunni Tajiks, the Democratic Party (Rastokhez Badakhshon), and all the other democratic forces supported Khudonazarov’s candidacy. He won about 40 percent of the vote while the Communist Party’s candidate got more than 50 percent of the votes. What is most interesting, however, is that nobody challenged the results, because everybody recognized that there had actually been a democratic and transparent election in Tajikistan. In other words, the people and the political parties participating in the process considered the elections to have been democratic. It also meant that the Tajik people were politicized enough to know the rules of the game. When I hear of people today being portrayed as insufficiently politically educated, I do not agree, because back then no individual and no party — whether they won or lost — protested 2 or challenged the results of the elections. What happened, however, is that the victorious party started to realize that the opposition held considerable potential, as it had collected about 40 percent of the votes, and they could not simply ignore this potential. This is why a coalition government was created, which allowed for stronger representation. For a while, active political figures entered the government, such as Davlat Usmon, who held the post of first deputy prime minister. Other ministers were chosen from the Democratic Party and from Rastokhez, although key posts were reserved for the Communist Party and the former Soviet nomenklatura. During this period, people were very tolerant and willing to cooperate. Tajikistan, for the first time since the Soviet period, set an example for constructive communication, with a common language among all political players in the country. Things went differently in other Central Asian countries and in the European part of the former Soviet Union, where heavy confrontations between political parties broke out. By 1992 conditions had become clear in all these republics: the former nomenklatura was back in power, this time acting in the name of presidents, as presidents were now the heads of state in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and even Russia. Boris Yeltsin may have been the most democratic head of state among the above-mentioned new countries, but in most cases the top posts were generally held by former Communist Party members. The Tajik example, at that time considered a democratic island in the former Soviet Union and especially in Central Asia, did not please everyone. I remember that we had good, independent mass media and freedom of the press was rather well developed. In previous elections, our political parties had published their newspapers somewhere in the Baltics or in Georgia, and brought them to Tajikistan by plane. After the presidential elections, however, printing oppositional publications became easier and some opposition parties from other Central Asian republics even wished to publish their newspapers in Tajikistan. The slow death of a democracy that had barely started Those elections, as I said, took place in the autumn of 1991. The following winter, I remember that Kazakh opposition parties and Uzbeks wanted us to print their newspapers. I do not actually remember whether this came about, but they did approach us to explore the possibilities. Printing companies agreed because the conditions in Tajikistan allowed it. In 1991 I began studies in Yemen and was observing events from far away. Thus, I did not witness how this coalition government performed, and it is difficult for me to judge, but I know one thing: Moscow and Tashkent were not pleased by this government’s work, precisely because representatives of various political parties had become part of the government, and hence set a new alternative example for the region. They feared that a similar government could be demanded in Tashkent, in Alma-Ata, and in Russia as well, which would challenge their ruling elites and governments. However, the coalition government — which was then called the government of national unity — made mistakes and did not manage to resolve the tensions among the regions, especially with regard to Kulob and Sughd (the Leninabad area of that time).