Articles that appeared yesterday in two reputable Web-based sources, Eurasia Net – Eurasia Insight and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, suggested that the presidential election in Tajikistan had presented few or no surprises. While Emomali Rakhmonov’s victory was a foregone conclusion months ahead of the vote, I believe that the rest of the election process was in fact a big surprise.

The reported turnout has probably been the greatest surprise so far. According to the latest data provided by the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER), 3,05 million voters, slightly over 91 percent of the total amount of registered voters, cast their ballots yesterday.

Turnout reportedly close to 100 percent is not a new phenomenon in the history of Tajik elections. However, given the IOM-estimated 800 thousand to 1 million Tajik citizens working as labor migrants abroad, the reported turnout seems very doubtful. Vadim in his latest post reported on how poorly the voting was organized in the Tajik embassy to Bishkek. I think it was not an isolated example and it is indicative of the entire election process in Tajik representations abroad. As it had happened before, the majority of our citizens working as labor migrants abroad either were not aware of the election and candidates, or could not vote in the few polling stations opened abroad.

The second surprise was the preliminary results announced by CCER. Mirzoali Boltuev, Head of CCER speaking yesterday evening to journalists, said Emomali Rakhmonov got 79,3 percent of the vote. Meanwhile Olimjon Boboev of the Party of Economic Reforms got 6,2 percent, Amir Karakulov of the Agrarian Party got 5,3 percent, Ismoil Talbakov of the Communist Party got 5,1 percent, and Abduhalim Gaffarov of the Socialist Party got 2,8 percent. While Rakhmonov’s landslide victory was widely predicted by experts and analysts, the reported number of votes cast for other candidates is a real surprise.

Tajik political system has a lot of peculiarities that need to be taken into account. However, that a handful of unknowns can get up to 20 percent of the vote after only one month of campaigning with no visibility whatsoever is very strange even for Tajikistan. In my very brief and totally unscientific survey with 50 voters interviewed yesterday, I have not met a single person who was going to vote for any candidate other than Rakhmonov. IWPR’s brief interviews with voters have also showed that even the members of the other political parties voted for Emomali Rakhmonov rather than the candidates from their respective parties.

Finally, the third surprise is that Emomali Rakhmonov has probably lost a unique opportunity to conduct the first genuinely free and fair elections that could have stood the harshest international standards. Prior to the vote, many people (including me) sincerely believed that Rakhmonov, well aware of his great popular support, will conduct a model election for the consumption of international watchdogs and foreign donors. While international observers have not yet presented their findings on the election, preliminary information suggests that the yesterday’s vote fell short of meeting key international election standards. It is very unclear yet whether Rakhmonov did not or could not ensure the free and fair election. It is very likely that he tried hard to do so, but the long-standing tradition of election manipulation prevailed.

For anyone dissatisfied with the conduct of the vote, Rakhmonov had a message that western values were not always applicable to elections in eastern countries: “Tajikistan is a country with more than 99 percent of the population being Muslim. We have a different culture, and this has to be taken into account… As for the OSCE commitments, not a single country in the world has ever held an election that completely met the requirements set by OSCE”.

OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), which had had 13 long term and 100 short term observers deployed throughout the country to monitor the election, will present its findings later today. Other international observation missions are expected to do so soon. Final results of the election are due to be announced by CCER by November 16 at the latest.