Tajik

Tajik, Tadjik or Tadzhik may refer to:

President of Tajikistan

The President of Tajikistan is the Head of State and highest position within the Government of Tajikistan. The position of President was created in November 1990 while Tajikistan was still a Soviet Republic. The president of Tajikistan lives in the capital, Dushanbe.

History of the Presidency

The first president of Tajikistan was Qahhor Mahkamov, who held the position of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Tajikistan and was appointed President of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in November 1990. Mahkamov served both as First Secretary and President but was forced to resign in August 1991 due to the unpopularity of his support for the August Coup of 1991 in Moscow and the resulting street demonstrations in Dushanbe. From 1991 to 1992 the post of the president changed hands several times due to the political changes and uncertainly following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and ensuing social unrest and violence in the Tajikistan Civil War. Since 1994, Emomali Rahmonov has held the position of the presidency. The presidential elections were last held in 2013. Presidential elections in Tajikistan have consistently been criticized by international observers as unfair and favoring the ruling party.

Emomali Rahmon

Emomalii Rahmon (Persian: امام‌علی رحمان‎‎), (Tajik: Эмомалӣ Раҳмон; born 5 October 1952) is a Tajik politician who has served as Tajikistan's head of state since 1992, and as President since 1994.

During the early years of his presidency, Rahmon faced a civil war in which up to 100,000 people died. In 2013, he was elected to a fourth term in office.

Early life

Rahmon was born as Emomali Sharipovich Rahmonov (Russian: Эмомали́ Шари́пович Рахмо́нов) to a peasant family in Danghara,Kulob Oblast (present-day Khatlon province). The Russian ending "-ov" was added to the first name of the father of Central Asian men in the 19th century to create surnames reflecting the influence of the Russian Empire. From 1971 to 1974 he served in the Soviet Armed Forces.

As an apparatchik rising through the nomenklatura, his original power base was as chairman of the collective state farm of his native Danghara. In 1982, he graduated from the Tajik State National University with a bachelor's degree in Economics. From 1976 to 1988, he served as Chairman of the Union Committee of the collective farm in Danghara.