Tajik opposition disputes election of President Rakhmon

The opposition in Tajikistan has said it will mount a legal challenge to the results of parliamentary elections.

The election commission said President Imomali Rakhmon's party won almost all the seats in the lower house of parliament in the election.

It said the opposition Islamic Revival Party won two seats, and five went to minority parties including the communists.

Voting was marred by widespread fraud, international monitors have said.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the polls had "failed on many basic democratic standards".

Challenge

"The election results, though preliminary, are unfair. There was massive falsification. We find it hard to explain this to our constituents," opposition party chief Muhiddin Kabiri told reporters.

"We will take action within the laws of Tajikistan. The Islamic Revival Party is the party of the people. We will express our protest following the legal path in court."

Mr Kabiri said that his party won around 30% of the vote, and not 7.7% as claimed by the Central Elections Commission.

"We will decide whether to take part in the incoming parliament, or whether to declare a hunger strike or organise a rally," he said.

President Rakhmon's People's Democratic Party was said by the election commission to have won 45 of the parliament's 63 seats. An additional nine nominally independent seats went to local leaders seen as loyal to the president.

Election officials claimed a 87.1% turnout, a massive amount in a country where at least one million men are estimated to have fled the country in search of work.

The ruling party earlier said there had been minor violations to the poll which would not affect the will of the Tajik people.

The observers from OSCE and the European Parliament said there had been "serious irregularities" on polling day, including a high prevalence of family and proxy voting and cases of ballot box stuffing.

Kyrgyz President Re-elected Amid Charges of Widespread Fraud

By VOA News 24 July 2009

Kyrgyz election officials dump ballots onto a table to begin the vote count at a polling station in Bishkek, 23 Jul 2009

International monitors are criticizing Kyrgyzstan's presidential election Friday, even as the country's election commission claims President Kurmanbek Bakijev is headed for a landslide win.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, says Thursday's election was marred by ballot-box stuffing, voter list inaccuracies and evidence of multiple voting. It also accused President Bakijev of using government resources to ensure his victory.

The preliminary report by Europe's top security organization may bolster claims by the main opposition candidate, former Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev, who says the election was a sham.

Before the polls closed Thursday, Mr. Atambayev said the election was rigged and called for a rerun. Another presidential candidate, Zhenishbek Nazaraliyev, also quit while the voting was under way.

Kyrgyzstan's elections commission said Friday that Mr. Bakijev led the race by 86 percent, with about two-thirds of the ballots counted.

The commission insists the results are valid.

The United States has a strong interest in the central Asian country, which hosts a U.S. air base that supplies American and NATO troops in nearby Afghanistan.

Russia has recently given Kyrgyzstan about $2 billion in aid in what analysts say is an attempt to wield influence in Kyrgyzstan.

President Bakiyev took power in 2005 after violent street protests forced his predecessor, Askar Akayev, to resign.