Talk:2016 Tajik constitutional referendum

untitled

Could someone do a map of the results? Trump for president (talk) 03:59, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

block evasion? 98.67.185.215 (talk) 20:49, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Not that I know of. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:06, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

NPOV issues

The article as currently written does not maintain a neutral point of view, as it mixes a factual description of the political changes effected by the referendum with a commentary on why those changes might have been proposed in the first place (and all this commentary supposes a power grab on the part of the president or his supporters). If the commentary is to be kept, then it needs to be separated from the description of the referendum questions. —Psychonaut (talk) 06:35, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I think we can simply remove potential issues. Which sentences specifically do you mean? Brandmeister^talk 11:19, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I presume it's the final sentence in the introduction. I find the POV claim a bit odd though (perhaps it's just badly worded?) – if anything it doesn't go into enough detail about how the amendments were basically designed to allow Rahmon to become president for life. Number 57 11:27, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I mean that all references to Rahmon and his son should be removed from the bulleted list of constitutional changes. (Well, unless the constitution really does mention Rahmon explicitly—I rather doubt that it does.) I am not disputing that the amendments have been interpreted as being intended to allow Rahmon and his family to retain power; I am just saying that this interpretation needs to be separated from the factual description of the legal amendments. —Psychonaut (talk) 15:46, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand Wikipedia, but I do know Tajikistan, so I thought I would stick my oar in here. The constitutional amendment envisioning the elimination of term limits applies only to Rahmon, or more specifically the "Leader of the Nation," which is a title he was given by parliament in January 2016. The title was an ad hoc creation and applies only to Rahmon, rather to any and all future presidents. It is correct to say that the lower age limit at which candidates can run for presidency does not apply exclusively to Rahmon's son, so it may be preferable to couch that phrasing. That said, it is fair to say that this is broadly accepted speculation. Running the name 'Rustam Emomali' through News Google will reveal as much.

This is a useful doc to refer to http://www.ifes.org/sites/default/files/2016_ifes_tajikistan_constitutional_referendum_faqs.pdf

But to return to the point of the "leader for life," this is a slightly sexy but also ultimately, in real terms, accurate way of saying that Rahmon can now rule indefinitely, since he was previously constrained by term limits. Of course, many countries do not impose term limits on their leaders, so there is nothing necessarily inherently problematic here, but this is where it is important to background this development with the facts about the country's regular flouting of democratic standards, media freedoms and so on. The intent to rule for life, or at least to have his family in situ as long as possible, is a reasonable assumption, but it is an assumption all the same.

Next point refers to the missions monitoring the elections. This statement is most certainly wrong, on a couple of counts: "Observers from the OECD and ODIHR were denied entry and permission to observe the referendum." First off, that would be OSCE not OECD. ODIHR is a sub-organization within the OSCE anyhow, so this is a redundancy. Then again, elections are typically monitored long-term by ODIHR, which is an exclusively vote-monitoring body, and also short-term by groups of MPs from OSCE member countries, ie. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which is strictly speaking not within the OSCE.

In fact, there is some confusion on this point. In order for the OSCE to monitor a vote, it must receive an invitation from the party holding the referendum. Tajikistan claims it offered the invitation but that the OSCE declined, citing the fact that monitoring referendums does not come under its purview. Meanwhile, the OSCE has, to my knowledge, denied that it did receive any invitation at all, so there is a bit of a cognitive impasse here. Somewhat frustratingly, none of this seems to have been recorded in publicly available documentation or news reporting. What has been reported is that the OSCE did not observe, and that is all that is safe to confidently state. PeterLeonard78 (talk) 06:39, 28 May 2016 (UTC)