Tajik veteran politician Hikmatullo Nasriddinov has suggested naming the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP).

This is not the first such a suggestion made by Hikmatullo Nasriddinov, a Soviet throwback politician who later went on to become chairman on the Agrarian Party of Tajikistan.

Last year, Hikmatullo Nasriddinov suggested erecting a statue to Emomali Rahmon in Dushanbe bestowing the president with the honorific of “Hero of Tajikistan” for the second time.

Rahmon is hailed by Nasriddinov, for his role in leading Tajikistan out of the brutal civil war of the 1990s.

“In that distant Fall of 1992, when the historic 16th session of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan was being held in Khujand, I noticed in my capacity as a deputy that many experienced politicians did not at that time want to take the leadership of the country into their hands,” Nasriddinov told Asia-Plus in an interview.  “Rahmon agreed to take on this heavy burden of the country’s leadership, saying at the time: ‘I will bring Tajikistan peace and reconciliation.’”

Hikmatullo Nasriddinov went a step further and suggested that Rahmon be put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Tajikistan’s president was certainly more deserving of the prize than US President Barack Obama, Nasriddinov argued.

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his “effort to strengthen international diplomacy” in 2009, just nine months into his presidency.