Tajik leader Rakhmon set to extend long rule

By Roman Kozhevnikov and Dmitry Solovyov

DUSHANBE (Reuters) - Tajikistan's President Imomali Rakhmon is set to win a new seven-year term on Wednesday in a country facing security threats from neighboring Afghanistan and located on a major heroin trafficking route from Kabul to Russia and Europe.

The former head of a state farm, who has been in power since 1992, is running against five little-known, mainly loyal candidates who pose no threat. The only genuine opposition candidate was unable to run.

But critics say Rakhmon, 61, faces mounting social tension in the Muslim, Central Asian state where about half the 8 million population live in poverty. More than 1 million work abroad, sending money home to their families.

By barring moderate opposition candidate Oynihol Bobonazarova for not getting enough signatures of support, secular authorities risk radicalizing opponents in a country where tens of thousands were killed in a 1992-97 civil war.

"We say the state must be changed through elections, we respect the law ... but if instead of us more radical elements come, the authorities will be to blame for that," Bobonazarova, a 65-year-old human rights activist, told Reuters.

Moscow-backed Rakhmon could face security threats from Islamist militants in neighboring Afghanistan after the planned withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in 2014. Tajikistan also lies on a heroin trafficking route from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe.

Rakhmon did not conduct an election campaign, relying on extensive media coverage of trips across the country where he was met by jubilant crowds reciting poetry glorifying him.

In the capital Dushanbe, he looks down from huge billboards and stickers of him are plastered across the windscreens of taxis and buses. The other five hopefuls are featured mainly on modest leaflets at bus stops.

Young shop assistant Eraj Asadullayev does not remember any other leader, and his choice is clear.

"I will vote for him," he said. "I like him as a person, not as a president. I really love him."

But Bobonazarova, who is backed by the Islamic Revival Party, Tajikistan's second-largest political force, and by the opposition Social Democratic Party, said Rakhmon had developed a personality cult and people hid their true feelings.

"We have so many problems, and they (the people) keep singing odes in his honor. They extol him, and later on they say terrible things about him," she said.

DIVIDED OPPOSITION

She said activists collecting signatures of support for her had been summoned by prosecutors and detained and intimidated by the secret service. Rakhmon's press service declined comment.

The West has not recognized a single election in Tajikistan to be free and fair.

Rakhmon, who has increased the number and length of his terms through constitutional amendments, won 79 percent of the vote in the previous election in 2006. His next term must be his last, according to the constitution.

Many of his opponents in the civil war won by his secular government are now in the Islamic Revival Party. But the opposition is weak and disparate, and there is official pressure on media and those accused of preaching radical Islam.

In October, Dushanbe ratified a deal with Moscow under which Russian soldiers will be deployed at a base Tajikistan for three decades. In return, Tajik officials said, Rakhmon won a deal allowing some duty-free imports of oil products and agreement by Moscow not to get tougher on Tajik migrants.

Presidential spokesman Abdufattoh Sharifzoda said Rakhmon had issued an order banning pompous ceremonies.

"But local governors are vying with each other to arrange the best reception," he said. "Everyone wants to show that his personal love for the president is the strongest."

(Writing by Dmitry Solovyov, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Politics & GovernmentElectionsTajikistanAfghanistan
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