Government
Type: Republic.
Independence: September 9, 1991 (from Soviet Union).
Constitution: November 6, 1994.
Branches: Executive--Chief of state: President Emomali RAHMONOV since November 6, 1994; head of state and Supreme Assembly chairman since November 19, 1992; head of government: Prime Minister Oqil OQILOV since January 20, 1999. Cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president, approved by the Supreme Assembly. Elections: president elected by popular vote for a 7-year term; election last held November 6, 1999 (next to be held NA 2006); prime minister appointed by the president. Election results: Emomali RAHMONOV elected president; percent of vote: Emomali RAHMONOV 96%, Davlat USMONOV 4%. Legislative--bicameral Supreme Assembly or Majlisi Oli consists of the Assembly of Representatives (lower chamber) or Majlisi Namoyanandagon (63 seats; members are elected by popular vote to serve 5-year terms) and the National Assembly (upper chamber) or Majlisi Milliy (33 seats; members are indirectly elected by popular vote to serve 5-year terms, 25 selected by local deputies, 8 appointed by the president; all serve 5-year terms) election results: Assembly of Representatives--percent of vote by party--PDPT 65%, Communist Party 20%, Islamic Revival 7.5%, other 7.5%; seats by party--NA; National Assembly--percent of vote by party NA%; seats by party--NA elections: last held February 27 and March 12, 2000 for the Assembly of Representatives (next to be held NA 2005) and March 23, 2000 for the National Assembly Judicial--Supreme Court, judges are appointed by the president. Political parties and leaders: Democratic Party or DPT [Mahmadruzi ISKANDDAROV, chairman]; Islamic Revival Party [Said Abdullo NURI]; Social Democratic Party or SDPT [Rahmatullo ZOIROV]; People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan or PDPT [Emomali RAHMONOV]; Tajik Communist Party or CPT [Shodi SHABDOLOV]; Socialist Party of Tajikistan Party or [Mirhusein NARZIEV].
Suffrage: 18 years of age, universal.
Defense (2000 est.): Military manpower (availability): 1,253,427.
Flag: Three horizontal stripes of red (top), a wider stripe of white, and green; a gold crown surmounted by seven gold, five-pointed stars is located in the center of the white stripe.

Government of Tajikistan
The Republic of Tajikistan gained its independence during the breakup of the U.S.S.R. on September 9, 1991 and promptly fell into a civil war from 1992-97 between old-guard regionally based ruling elites and disenfranchised regions, democratic liberal reformists, and Islamists loosely organized in a United Tajik Opposition (UTO). Other combatants and armed bands that flourished in this civil chaos simply reflected the breakdown of central authority rather than loyalty to a political faction. The height of hostilities occurred between 1992-93. By 1997, the predominantly Kulyabi-led Tajik Government and the UTO successfully negotiated a powersharing peace accord and implemented it by 2000.

Tajikistan is slowly rebuilding itself with an integrated government and continues to permit a Russian military presence to guard their border with Afghanistan and the basing of the Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Division that never left Tajikistan when it became independent. Most of these Russian-led forces, however, are local Tajik noncommissioned officers and soldiers.

Both Tajikistan's presidential and parliamentary elections, in 1999 and 2000, respectively, were widely considered to be flawed and unfair but peaceful. The inclusion of an overtly declared Islamic party committed to secular government (Islamic Rebirth Party) and several other parties in the Parliamentary elections represented an improvement in the Tajik people's right to choose their government. Tajikistan is the only Central Asian country in which a religiously affiliated political party is represented in Parliament. President Rahmonov, while no longer specifically obliged--as he was under the peace accords--to allocate one-third of government positions to the UTO, has kept some former UTO officials in senior cabinet-level positions. While the government and the now incorporated former opposition continue to distrust each other, they have often found a way to work with each other and are committed to peacefully resolving their differences.

Tajikistan's fragmented neighbor to the south, Afghanistan, continues to be a base of international terrorism, a scene of civil conflict between the Taliban and their opponents, and the world's largest producer of opium. This combination of negative factors produces crossborder effects that regularly threatens to destabilize Tajikistan's fragile and hard-won peace. In the summers of 1999 and 2000, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an officially declared terrorist organization by the U.S. Government, used Tajikistan as a staging ground for an insurgency campaign against the Government of Uzbekistan. At the same time, Taliban advances in northern Afghanistan threatened to inundate Tajikistan with thousands of refugees. All the while, a constant flow of illegal narcotics continue to transit Tajikistan from Afghanistan on its way to Russian and European markets, leaving widespread violent crime, corruption, increased HIV incidence, and economic distortions in its wake. During 2002, stability in the country continued to increase, and the year was largely free of the assassinations and outbreaks of violence perpetrated by unreformed opposition members that plagued the country in previous years.
source: http://www.state.gov