Tajikistan took its first steps as an independent state in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and gave rise to 15 new countries. Between 1992 and 1997 it was gripped by a civil war, which caused huge political and economic upheaval as well as untold destruction. Between 20,000 and 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed,‍[5] while hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, many of them to Afghanistan, where some languished in refugee camps for years.‍[6]

Ostensibly, the civil war pitted pro-Communist forces against a coalition of opposition groups, including democrats, nationalists and members of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP). However, behind the scenes much of the initiative was held by local strongmen, who rallied troops and led the fighting. The peace agreement signed between the government and the opposition forces in June 1997 provided for the integration of many of the strongmen into official structures. Overall, it guaranteed the opposition 30% representation in state structures.‍[7] The bulk of the positions fell into the hands of the IRP, which was the dominant force in the anti-government coalition.

The agreement brought much of the fighting to an end, even if some splinter groups remained opposed to it and on occasion challenged it by force of arms. But it proved to be an unstable construct. The circle around President Emomali Rahmon wasted no time in increasing its control and putting pressure on those who were not subordinate to it. The 1999 presidential election saw the president re-elected with an unlikely 97% of the vote in a contest marked by irregularities.‍[8] Constitutional amendments in subsequent years reinforced his legal powers while a spate of assassinations cleared the field of possible rivals in both government and opposition circles. With his control of patronage, Rahmon bought off erstwhile opponents, widening his personal network and weakening the opposition. Electoral outcomes, too, curtailed the influence of the Islamic Renaissance Party, which gained only two seats in the national assembly in the 2000 parliamentary elections – elections deemed by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) not to have met basic democratic standards.‍[9]

The effectiveness with which the opposition was marginalised owed much to the latter’s disunity. The United Tajik Opposition (UTO), a signatory to the 1997 peace agreement, was not a cohesive entity but had been set up as a united front for the opposition in its negotiations with the government. It masked deeper divisions between political leaders and local power-holders that could be exploited by the government. This was one reason why the government was able to expel or reassign numerous UTO figures in later years without meeting much organised resistance from the opposition as a whole.‍[10]

As well as politicking, the government has resorted to military force to impose its authority. There have been numerous episodes of armed violence since 1997, including in Khujand in 1999, in Dushanbe in 2001, in Kulob in 2008, in Karategin in 2009 and 2010, and in Khorugh in 2012. Some of the clashes were portrayed as Islamist-fuelled but can more adequately be described as showdowns between the regime and groups thought to threaten it. In Karategin and Khorugh, state counter-insurgency forces were deployed to root out individuals who had retained local autonomy after the 1997 settlement, one goal being to extend the writ of the government over areas where it had incomplete control.

Through its manoeuvrings, the ruling circle has increased its control over Tajikistan. That control is contingent, incomplete and dependent on deals with local power-holders. It has not done away with tensions and fractures that remained after 1997 and that have been at the heart of much of the violence that has erupted in the past two decades. The risk of new flare-ups remains real, particularly in more peripheral places such as Khorugh, where the 2012 military operation galvanised local resistance.

Nevertheless, the Tajik regime is more stable and entrenched than commonly assumed, while its adversaries remain weak and divided. Indeed, the post-war settlement, based on power-sharing between the government and its major opponents, has gradually been whittled away. The government has neutralised most of its erstwhile adversaries or drawn them into its patron–client relations. Rahmon remains the centre of political patronage and has secured the backing of economic elites, the official Islamic clergy and many state officials who depend on being in his good graces for their positions. Others have been killed, including the former UTO field commanders Mirzo Ziyoyev, Mullah Abdullah, Alovuddin Davlatov and the brothers Bahrom and Rizvon Sodirov – or imprisoned, including Gaffar Mirzoyev and Yakub Salimov, once allies of Rahmon. Meanwhile, Rahmon has appointed family members and relatives to senior positions, including his brother-in-law, who heads Tajikistan’s main commercial bank; his son, Rustam, who runs the country’s anti-corruption bureau; his daughter Ozoda, who was made his chief of staff in January; and the latter’s husband, who is deputy head of the national bank.‍[11]

Since the civil war, Tajikistan has gone from being a country with a highly fractured political space to one where the regime is fast consolidating its position. Today, few if any rival sites of political authority exist. Even though the plight of most Tajiks is worse than it has been for many years, there seems to be little scope for a serious challenge to Rahmon’s position as long as the foundations of his power remain intact.