"Tajik governing party declared winner" by Associated Press | March 6, 2010
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Election officials in Tajikistan declared the governing party the overwhelming winner of parliamentary elections that international observers say were marred by widespread fraud....
The landslide is set to strengthen President Emomali Rakhmon’s two-decade hold over the impoverished country that serves as a supply route for international forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
Yeah, who cares about electoral fraud here (as opposed to Iran, say) -- especially when only Muslims are getting screwed?
The Islamic Revival Party, which came a distant second with 8.2 percent of the vote, says it will challenge the result in the courts and will take their supporters to the streets if their grievances do not get a fair hearing....
That will make coverage imperative, no?!!!
There is wariness about the possibility of public protests, however, in a country that remains scarred by a five-year civil war that ended in 1997, leaving the economy in shambles.
International monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that while the vote was peaceful, it was marred by ballot-box stuffing and proxy voting.
In other words, like any other election on the planet (except maybe Afghanistan and Iraq, cui bono).
That view is shared by Western diplomats, who have expressed dismay at authorities’ failure to strengthen democracy in the former Soviet republic.
Lip service. Their role in the "war on terror" trumps all else.
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