Tajik Legislators Scrap Presidency
Tajikistan’s Parliament voted Friday to abandon the presidency and declared the war-torn Central Asian state a parliamentary republic, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Former Tajik President Rakhman Nabiyev, a former Communist, was swept from power by a coalition of Muslim radical and democrat forces in September.
Fighting then flared into a virtual civil war, killing hundreds of people and leaving more than 100,000 homeless in the impoverished republic bordering Afghanistan and China.
Tajikistan has suffered political turmoil and collapse since it became independent with the breakup of the Soviet Union last December.
The Parliament, which has been meeting in emergency session in the northern town of Khojand since Nov. 16 to find a way out of the conflict, voted to scrap the post of president and turn Tajikistan into a parliamentary republic.
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