DUSHANBE, October 11 (RIA Novosti) – A female opposition candidate was excluded Friday from participating in authoritarian Tajikistan's upcoming presidential elections.
Tajikistan’s central election commission said that prominent human rights activist Oynihol Bobonazarova would not be registered to take part in the presidential vote next month, in which six other candidates will participate, because she had failed to submit a required list of 210,000 signatures supporting her candidacy.
Incumbent Emomali Rakhmon, 61, who has been in power since 1992, is expected to win another seven-year term as president of the landlocked and poverty-stricken Central Asian country in the election on November 6.
Bobonazarova was nominated to run as president by a coalition of opposition groups in September, and has complained that officials have impeded her attempts to collect the required signatures.
