DUSHANBE, December 26, 2014, Asia-Plus — Since the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) has failed to find an appropriate hall for holding its pre-election congress scheduled for December 27, it has decided to hold the congress in its head office in Dushanbe.
“No one organization agreed to provide premises to us, and therefore, we were forced to reduce the number of delegates for the congress from 120 to 60,” SDP leader Rahmatillo Zoyirov told Asia-Plus in an interview.
Zoyirov says his party plans to include 20 candidates in the party list for election to Tajikistan’s lower chamber (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament and 10 other candidates will run in single-mandate constituencies.
Tajikistan’s Parliament (Majlisi Oli) has two chambers: the Assembly of Representatives (Majlisi Namoyandagon) and the National Assembly (Majlisi Milli). Majlisi Namoyandagon has 63 members, elected for a five-year term in, 22 by proportional representation and 41 in single-seat constituencies. Majlisi Milli has 33 members, 25 elected for a five-year term by local legislature (majlis) members and eight appointed by the president.
Founded in 2002, the Social-Democratic Party was registered on December 20, 2002. It was originally registered as the Party of Justice and Development on February 5, 1999. Tajikistan”s Ministry of Justice requested the same year that the Supreme Court ban the party”s activities and its registration was canceled. The party re-emerged and was registered under the name of the Social-Democratic Party in late 2002. Chairman of the Social-Democratic Party is Rahmatillo Zoyirov and the party reportedly has more than 8,000 members.
