On May 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the mayor of Dushanbe, Rustam Emomali, who also happens to be the chair of Tajikistan’s National Assembly (Majlisi Milli), the upper chamber of the country’s parliament. He’s also the son of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and considered by most analysts to be on a clear trajectory to succeed his father.
As RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, Radio Ozodi, noted, this was Emomali’s first personal meeting with Putin. And that alone carries significance, Bruce Pannier, a longtime journalist covering Central Asia, said in an interview with Ozodi.
The Kremlin’s readout of the meeting mentioned no agenda, noting only that Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko also attended.
The Tajik side, via the Majlisi Milli’s press center, had a more to say. According to Asia Plus, the assembly’s press center said discussions between Emomali and Putin focused on “strengthening strategic partnership, expanding inter-parliamentary dialogue, developing economic and humanitarian ties, and addressing labor migration issues.”
Pannier suggested that the trip may be a sign that the long-coming dynastic transition in Tajikistan is approaching. I’m inclined to agree, though the specific timing of that transition remains highly contingent on political and economic conditions — and has arguably been derailed at least once before.
In 2016, Tajikistan held a referendum on amendments to the constitution, one of which served to lower the age requirement for the presidency from 35 to 30. As I wrote in 2017, “The next time Tajikistan is due for a presidential election — 2020 — Rustam will be 32 (unless the election is after December 19 — Rustam’s birthday — in which case he’d be 33).”
The 2016 constitutional amendments were effectively a starting pistol for the countdown to transition. The following year, Emomali was appointed mayor of Dushanbe in 2017 by his father.
As the years passed, Tajikistan continued to experience economic hardship, struggle with energy shortages, and wrestle with flashes of terrorism. In July 2018, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a car attack that killed four foreign cyclists on a rural road in Tajikistan’s Khatlon province. Dushanbe did what Dushanbe typically does and blamed the attack on the exiled political opposition.
Emomali became chair of the Majlisi Milli in April 2020, but when the October 2020 election arrived, it was his father on the ballot still. But if the expected transition was delayed — by the pandemic, perhaps, and the instability it threatened — it was not denied. Emomali’s position as chair of the the Majlisi Milli places him official second-in-line to the presidency. According to the Tajik Constitution, if the president steps down or dies in office, it’s the chairman of the Majlisi Milli who takes up the reins of power.
This exact dance was pioneered in Kazakhstan, albeit with a less dynastic waltz. When President Nursultan Nazarbayev resigned in March 2019, the chairman of the Senate, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, became acting president. Tokayev then scheduled a snap election for June 2019, which he handily won.
Turkmenistan took a slightly different set of steps to achieve its own a dynastic transition: Then-President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov called for early elections on February 11, 2022 and three days later his son, Serdar, declared his intention to run. The following month, Serdar was elected. Although Serdar is technically president, subsequent government restructuring yielded an even higher position for Gurbanguly.
Returning to Tajikistan: Emomali’s Moscow trip very well may be another sign that a transition plan is playing out.
Moscow’s approval, analysts like Pannier have noted, is widely seen as critical. Rahmon is a known quantity, and at present Central Asia’s longest-serving leader. At 72, he’s also rumored to not be in the best of health. The fact that Emomali has been chair of the Majlisi Milli — a high position but not the kind that typically meets at the presidential level — since 2020 but is only now making the pilgrimage to Moscow is notable.
Tajikistan is tottering toward an inevitable transition, but Dushanbe — in utterly dismantling anything approaching normal political discourse and activity in the country — has narrowed the possible road for a smooth change of leadership down to a single man: Rustam Emomali. And even then, circumstances may change and the path could collapse entirely.