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Eurasia
June 16, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
Tajik president appoints daughter as justice counsellor
bne IntelliNews
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has granted the post of state justice counsellor to his daughter Ozoda Rahmon, the head of the presidential administration.
Rahmon has actively been shuffling his children among positions of power over the past few years. Ozoda was previously appointed chief of the presi- dential office in January 2016. The appointments are seen as moves aimed at consolidating power in the Rahmon family for years to come.
Tajikistan held a national referendum on May 22 to approve amendments to the constitution that would allow Rahmon to establish a presidential dynasty. Preliminary results by the Central Committee for Elections and Referendums showed that 94.7% of the Tajiks voted in favour of amending the constitution.
The amendments will allow the Tajik president to run for reelection indefinitely and lower the
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s daughter Ozoda Rahmon
presidential age limit to fit the current age of his eldest son, Rustam Emomali.
In December 2015, the authorities endorsed a bill that granted Rahmon and his relatives lifelong immunity from prosecution and gave Rahmon the title of “Leader of the Nation”.
When the death of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov in 2016 opened up a power vacuum in Central Asia’s most populous state, and worries about civil unrest and jihadism filling it, the other autocrats in this majority Muslim region, including Rahmon, began nervously looking over their shoulders at what this means for their regimes.
With the once biggest political opposition, the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, defenestrated, the referendum and other moves look certain to ensure the president’s family stays in power for the foreseeable future and thus puts an end to guesswork on who will succeed Rahmon.