DUSHANBE, September 17, 2008, Asia-Plus  - The Tajik ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDPT) intends to carry out within-the-Party reform, Davlatali Davlatzoda, first deputy leader of the party, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.  

According to him, such a decision has been taken by the party leadership in connection with parliamentary elections due in February 2010.  

“In the near future, special offices to promote solving social issues will be set up at all regional organizations of the party,” said Davlatzoda, “These offices will act as connecting link between society and the party and they will not only receive applications and complaints from citizens but also help solve problems facing applicants,”   

According to him, the party will pay more attention to improvement of “quality of its ranks” than to increase of the numbers of its members.  “We currently have 115,000 members and we now intend to improve quality of our ranks,” the PDPT deputy leader said.   

Founded in 1993, the People’s Democratic Party was registered with the Ministry of Justice the same year.  The PDPT is the biggest political party in Tajikistan.  Its chairman is President Emomali Rahmon.  The party currently controls some 80 percent of the seats in parliament.  An official newspaper of the party is Minbari Khalq .