For 5th Time, Rakhmon Wins Tajikistan Presidential Election

Tajikistan’s President, Emomali Rakhmon, won a second term, on Monday, after obtaining more than 90 percent of the vote, after a ballot in which he faced candidates considered weak opponents.

The Central Elections Committee reported that 90.9 percent of voters in Sunday's poll voted for the president, who will have a new seven-year term, according to preliminary results.

The committee stated that the turnout was 85 percent, according to France 24 report.

The victory would allow the 68-year Rakhmon to spend more than three decades in power, surpassing the president of Kazakhstan, who recently stepped down, Nursultan Nazarbayev, as the leader from the former Soviet Union who has spent the longest period in power.

Hence, the veteran leader has secured the country's presidency for the fifth time.

While disputes over election results in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Belarus, the two former republics of the Soviet Union, sparked widespread chaos, similar developments in Tajikistan seem unlikely.

However, Rakhmon and his government are facing unprecedented challenges due to the repercussions of the Covid-19 crisis on his country's economy, which is the weakest among the former Soviet Union countries.

It is believed that more than a million Tajiks work abroad, most of them in Russia. Rakhmon changed the constitution several times.

In 2007, he changed his name from Rahmonov to Rakhmon and discouraged his compatriots from using "foreign" names. For some years now, there has been a catalog of "permitted" names.