The Democratic Party of Tajikistan (DPT) is expected to hold its next 14th congress in Dushanbe on December 23.
120 delegates from all regions of the country and 50 guests are expected to attend the party congress that will take place at Asia Grand Hotel.
Meanwhile, Tajik known journalist Ibrohim Usmonov considers that today’s DPT differs from the party that had functioned in the 1990s.
Many known representatives of Tajik intelligentsia such as human rights activist Oinihol Bobonazarova, poet Bozor Sobir, actor Habibullo Abdurazzoqov and researchers Abdunabi Sattorzoda and Rahm Musulmoniyon joined the DPT in the early 1990.
According to Usmonov, many admirers of Bozor Sobir’s poetry joined the DPT. They reportedly joined the party because they trusted the poet but not the party’s ideals. That time, some people in Tajikistan had been calling the DPT “the party of Bozor Sobir.”
“Today’s Democratic Party does not have any prominent politician or public figure in its ranks,” said Usmonov. “This party today has nothing to say about internal or foreign policy of Tajikistan.”
“Today’s platform of the DPT is practically similar to the platform of the ruling People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan (PDPT). Today’s DPT is wing of the PDPT rather than opposition,” Usmonov said.
He is sure that if the congress replaces the party leader tomorrow, the party will cease to exist in the near future.
The DPT now has one seat in parliament; it is represented by its leader Saidjaffar Ismonov in the Majlis Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament). “If the party leadership retains its current policy till 2020 when parliamentary elections will take place in Tajikistan, Democrats will be able to get two or three seats in parliament,” Usmonov added.
The Democratic Party of Tajikistan can trace its origins back to the last days of the Soviet Union. Registered on June 21, 1991 and banned by the Supreme Court on June 21, 1993, the Democratic Party of Tajikistan was reregistered on December 3, 1999.
At the end of 1990s, two factions laid claim to the Democratic Party of Tajikistan: the Almaty platform led by Mahmadruzi Iskandarov and the Tehran platform run by Azam Afzali. The Tehran platform later transformed itself into the Taraqqiyot (Progress) Party.
On October 5, 2005, the Supreme Court sentenced DPT leader Mahmadruzi Iskandarov to 23 years in prison. The sentence followed his conviction on charges of terrorism, the embezzlement of state funds, and the illegal storage of weapons, though his supporters say he was jailed for political motives.
The party split into two factions again and the Ministry of Justice recognized Masoud Sobirov as the legitimate leader of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan in October 2006.
Democrats in the Sughd province and the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) as well as some primary organizations of the party in other regions of the country did not recognize Masoud Sobirov as the party leader and they demanded convocation of the extraordinary congress of the party.
An extraordinary congress of the party took place in Dushanbe on December 23, 2012 and Saidjaffar Ismonov was elected as chairman of the party.
According to some source, the party now has some 20,000 members.
