DUSAHNBE, October 9, Asia-Plus - Tajikistan’s Central Commission for Elections and Referenda has begun registering candidate for president.

The Democrats have failed to collect enough number of signatures to register their candidate with the central electoral commission.  They have managed to collect only 120 signatures by Saturday evening, 6:00 p.m., which is the deadline for submitting lists of signatures.  It was necessary to collect some 160,000 signatures to register as candidate.  Democrats fielded Tavarali Ziyoyev in the presidential election. 

Three other political parties, the Communist Party (CPT), the Agrarian Party (APT) and the Socialist (SPT) Party, have collected sufficient signatures to register their candidates with the central electoral commission for the presidential election. 

Abduali Abdulloyev, a member of the CPT Executive Committee, said that they had collected 185,000 signatures and sent the lists of signatures to the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER). 

According to the CCER, the APT has submitted to the central electoral commission 175,000 signatures to register its leader as a candidate for president.  

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDPT) and the Party of Economic Reforms were the first to submit their lists of signatures to the CCER. 

Muhibullo Dodojonov, a spokesman for the CCER, said that the PDPT had collected 685,000 signatures to support Emomali Rahmonov. Five political parties will continue race for presidency.  We will recall that the Social-Democratic Party (SDPT) decided to boycott the presidential election and the Islamic Revival Party (IRPT) decided not to put forward its candidate.