IPA CIS and OSCE/ODIHR Observers Exchanged Views on Elections in Republic of Tajikistan

Within the framework of the monitoring of the elections of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, the IPA CIS observers headed by Team Coordinator, Russian senator Oleg Melnichenko held a meeting with Head of the Observer Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Ivilina Aleksieva-Robinson. IPA CIS Council Secretary General Dmitriy Kobitskiy, Director of the IPA CIS International Institute for Monitoring Democracy Development Ivan Mushket and Head of the CIS Mission headquarters Evgeniy Kozlyak participated in the meeting.

Oleg Melnichenko told about the composition of the Team monitoring the elections in the Republic of Tajikistan, informed the colleagues on the work carried out by the IPA CIS Institute for Monitoring Democracy Development: within the long-term monitoring in Tajikistan, the experts held a number of meetings with the participants of the electoral process and analyzed the documents regulating the elections on their compliance with the international standards. Oleg Melnichenko informed the participants that the IPA CIS observers monitored the elections at the polling stations in Dushanbe, Tursunzoda and other districts. He noted the positive impression of the elections featuring national specifics, which did not go beyond the international approaches to the elections assessment.

The senator told about the CIS monitoring principles, which were similar to those that formed the basis of the OSCE/ODIHR’s work. He stressed the new challenges faced by the observers this year, including the increased role of the online campaigning due to the pandemic and the related issues of cyber security and transformation of monitoring mechanism.

Ivilina Aleksieva-Robinson told about the work of the mission of the European observers, which was aimed at elections assessments in accordance with the international democratic standards, adopted by the OSCE. The ODIHR observers focused on several areas of monitoring, including the assessment of the legislation, direct organization of electoral process, monitoring of media coverage, etc. She noted that on that day the ODIHR did not perform systematic monitoring; however, a number of observers visited several polling stations. The final report on the outcomes of the elections in Tajikistan will be provided eight weeks after the elections.

The two parties agreed that the bilateral meetings of the observer team were essential and contributed to the harmonization of the monitoring approaches.