DUSHANBE, June 9, 2016, Asia-Plus — Qahhor Mahkamov, the first president of Tajikistan, died in Dushanbe yesterday aged 84.
Qahhor Mahkamov was born to a baker family on April 16, 1932, in the village of Ghoziyon, not far from the northern city of Khujand.
He graduated from Dushanbe Industrial College in 1950 and from the Leningrad Mining Institute in 1953 with a degree in engineering. In 1953, Qahhor Mahkamov began working as an engineer at a coal mine in Shurob, a settlement in the Isfara district.
Qahhor Mahkamov joined the Communist Party in 1957.
In 1961, he was appointed chairman of the city executive committee of Leninabad, as Khujand was known at the time. Two years later, he was promoted to chairman of the Tajik SSR’s State Planning Committee (Gosplan), a position he occupied for 19 years.
From 1965, he simultaneously acted as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Tajikistan. And then from 1982 to 1986, he served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Tajikistan.
In December 1984, Qahhor Mahkamov was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Tajikistan, de facto making him the republic’s leader. From 1986, he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Mahkamov embraced the reforms that came with perestroika and thought they would enable to flourishing of national self-awareness.
In February 1990, mass disturbances broke out in Dushanbe amid a swirl of rumors that plush apartments were being handed out to Armenian refugees from Baku. This was a sensitive issue as the city was at the time in the grip of a mounting housing shortage crisis.
As criticism mounted, Mahkamov tendered a token resignation that was rejected by a plenary sitting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Tajikistan.
He served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from April 12 to November 30, 1990. As part of the political reforms that Gorbachev was instituting the Supreme Soviet of Tajikistan appointed Mahkamov the first President of Tajikistan on November 30, 1990. Mahkamov”s fall from power came in August 1991 when he supported the failed August Coup by hardliners in Moscow. Protestors took to the streets and demanded Mahkamov”s ouster from power and on August 31, 1991 he resigned his positions as President and First Secretary. Mahkamov then retired from politics and sat on the sidelines during the ensuing political instability and civil war in Tajikistan.
After his resignation he became a life-time member of Tajikistan’s upper house (Majlisi Milli) of parliament in 2000. He largely disappeared from public view in the years after independence.
