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| - The ruling party of Tajikistan's authoritarian President Emomali Rakhmon has taken a strong lead in parliamentary polls while the only competing opposition party was left outside parliament, election authorities said Monday. The People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan scored 50.4 percent in Sunday's vote, the Central Election Commission said, citing a preliminary count. Five other pro-government parties -- the Agrarian Party, the Party of Economic Reform, the Democratic Party, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party -- entered parliament. The Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan, the only identifiable opposition party in the race, took just 0.32 percent of the vote, well short of the five percent threshold. The party also failed to win in single member districts, which offer alternative routes into the legislature. The CEC said turnout was 86.4 percent. The election was the first in the country's post-Soviet history without the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, a moderate faith-based party which was once the main opposition but was outlawed in 2015 and has been the target of a harsh crackdown ever since. Since the party was outlawed, 67-year-old Rakhmon has strengthened his control over the country. In 2016 he oversaw a referendum that allowed him to rule indefinitely. Long regarded as the poorest country in the ex-Soviet Union, Tajikistan has seen its poverty rate decline over the last two decades to around 29 percent in 2017. Hundreds of thousands of the 4.7 million electorate live and work in Russia, where polling stations were set up at the country's embassy in Moscow and consulate in Saint Petersburg. cr/mm/txw
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