Rakhmonov wins presidential election in Tajikistan

Incumbent President Emomali Rakhmonov won Monday's presidential election in Tajikistan with 79.3 percent of the vote, the head of the central election commission said on Tuesday.

The victory, although modest as compared to his last landslide win in the 1999 poll with over 96 percent of the votes, would put him to another seven-year term.

About 3.4 million voters were registered for the poll, the central election commission said.

Rakhmonov, who was nominated by his People's Democratic Party, faced Olimdzhon Boboyev of the Party of Economic Reform, Abdukhalim Gaffarov of the Socialist Party, Amirkul Karakulov of the Agrarian Party and Ismoil Talbakov of the Communist Party in the race for the country's top job.

More than 700 international observers monitored the vote. Some of them were sent by international groups like the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Source: Xinhua