DUSHANBE (TCA) — Tajikistan’s lawmakers have approved a bill to designate November 16 as President’s Day, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported.
According to the new legislation, President’s Day will remain a working day.
The bill passed in Tajik parliament’s lower chamber on April 15 still must be approved by the upper chamber and endorsed by President Emomali Rakhmon before becoming law.
On November 16, 1992, a session of the Tajik Supreme Council opened in the southern Tajik city of Khujand that three days later elected Rakhmon as the council’s chairman. This gave him the status of Tajikistan’s leader, which he has held ever since.
Among Central Asian countries, only Kazakhstan has a similar public holiday. It is called the Day of the First President of Kazakhstan and is marked on December 1.
A bill passed in December last year gave the 63-year-old Rakhmon the title of “Leader of the Nation” and granted him and his relatives lifelong immunity from prosecution.
On January 22, the lower chamber of Tajikistan’s parliament passed amendments to the country’s Constitution according to which President Rakhmon, as the Leader of the Nation, may be elected President of Tajikistan an unlimited number of times.
On May 22, Tajikistan is set to hold a referendum on those constitutional amendments.
Rakhmon was elected to his fourth term as president in 2013.
