Recall, political parties officially functioning in Tajikistan will now be able to count on money from the national budget. Members of Tajikistan’s lower chamber (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament on April 11 endorsed a bill proposing amendments to the country’s law on political parties.
Presenting the bill to lawmakers, the Minister of Justice Muzaffar Ashouriyon noted that “a new clause that has been added to Article 12 of the RT Law “On the Political Parties” states that the national budget is one of the sources of the creation of funds of political parties in cases provided for by this law,”
According to him, participation of political parties in the election to the Majlisi Namoyandagon of the new convocation will be financed from the country’s budget. The payment will be made after the elections themselves, Ashouriyon noted.
The support reportedly amount is 7.0 percent of the calculating indicator (estimate) multiplied by the number of votes received by a political party.
The current calculating indicator amounts to 72.00 somonis. It means that a political party that will pass a 5-percent electoral threshold will be able to get 5.04 somonis for each vote.
Currently, seven political parties officially function in Tajikistan:
- The ruling People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan (PDPT) is the largest political party in Tajikistan, boasting more than 600,000 registered members. President Emomali Rahmon is chairman of the party;
- The Democratic Party of Tajikistan (DPT) – 52,000 members as of 2022;
- The Communist Party of Tajikistan (CPT) – 59,000 members as of 2023;
- The Socialist Party of Tajikistan (SPT) – more than 25,000 members as of 2020;
- The Agrarian Party of Tajikistan – 55,000 members as of 2020;
- The Party of Economic Reforms of Tajikistan (PERT) – more than 30,000 members as of 2020;
- The Social-Democratic Party of Tajikistan (SDPT) – more than 10,000 members as of January 1, 2024.
Let’s take as an example the parliamentary elections that took place in Tajikistan on March 1, 2020.
4,245,000 of 4,929,128 registered voters cast a ballot on March 1, well over the 50 percent turnout needed to make the election valid. The PDPT won 50.4 percent of votes, the PERT – 16.61 percent, the APT – 16.5 percent, the PERT – 7.6 percent, the SPT – 5.15 percent, and the DPT – 5.1 percent.
Based on the amendments proposed to the law, the PDPT would get about 10.8 million somonis (about 1 million USD) in one-time support from the budget, the PERT — about 3.6 million somonis (325,000 USD), the APT – more than 3.5 million somonis (323,000 USD), the SPT and the DPT – 1.1 million somonis (about 100,000 USD) each.
In general, the budget would have to fork out more than 20 million somonis (more than 1.8 million USD).
Meanwhile, it is to be noted that the calculating indicator practically changes annually, moreover, in the direction of increase.
