1994 Tajik presidential election

Presidential elections were held in Tajikistan on 6 November 1994.[1] Emomali Rahmonov, who had been de facto president since 1992, ran for the revived post with the support (though not the formal nomination) of the Communist Party of Tajikistan and won 59.5% of the vote. Voter turnout was 95.0%.

1994 Tajik presidential election

6 November 1994
Turnout	95.0%
Nominee Emomali Rahmonov Abdumalik Abdullajanov Party Independent Independent Popular vote 1,434,437 835,861 Percentage 59.5% 34.7%
President before election Emomali Rahmonov Independent Elected President Emomali Rahmonov Independent

Background

The elections took place amidst the ongoing civil war, although a round of talks in Tehran in September 1994 provided for a formal cease-fire, scheduled to end on 5 November.[2] The initial scheduled date for the elections was 25 September, but by early September only Rahmonov was registered. The Russian and Uzbek governments put pressure on Rahmonov, resulting in the postponement of the election to 6 November and extension of the nomination deadline until 27 October.

Campaign

Although the second registered candidate, Abdumalik Abdullajanov, was not a decoy figure, the main opposition forces had not been allowed to form political parties and were effectively shut out of political activity prior to the elections. As a result, the opposition boycotted the elections, saying that a fair contest was impossible with Rahmonov in power.

Conduct

The election process was described in a 1995 US State Department report as favoring the incumbent ruler and being non-fair: intimidation and ballot-box stuffing was reported, vote rigging was suspected.[3]

Results

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Emomali Rahmonov		1,434,437	59.5
Abdumalik Abdullajanov		835,861	34.7
Against all
Invalid/blank votes			–
Total		2,409,330	100
Registered voters/turnout
Source: Nohlen et al.

References

1. Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p462 ISBN 0-19-924958-X
2. Linda Edgeworth; Walter Smith; Scott Lansell; Gwenn Hoffman; Sara Dashtamirova; Walter Smith; Linda Edgeworth; Scott Lansell (1 March 1995). Compendium of Reports on Technical Election Assistance to Tajikistan: Pre-Election Assessment, Election Day Observations, Post-Election Technical Asse. IFES. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-1-879720-28-2.
3. Tajikistan Human Rights Practices, 1994 Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine - US Department of State, February 1995