The Social-Democratic Party of Tajikistan (SDPT) has decided to postpone its 13th congress scheduled for March 18 to a later date.   

“We have decided to postpone the congress to a later date because we need to reregister all members of the party and after that the party’s organizations in the regions will hold conferences to elect delegates to the congress,” SDPT leader Rahmatillo Zoyirov told Asia-Plus in an interview.

According to him, the report-and-election congress will review the results of the work carried out by the party over the past several years, consider the party policy for the next several years and elect new leaders of the party.

Asked whether he will stand for reelection as party leader, Zoyirov said that it would be solved at the congress.  

In all, the congress is expected to discuss six or seven issues, SDPT leader added.

Founded in 2002, the Social-Democratic Party was registered on December 20, 2002.  It was originally registered as the Party of Justice and Development on February 5, 1999.  Tajikistan’s Ministry of Justice requested the same year that the Supreme Court ban the party’s activities and its registration was canceled.  The party re-emerged and was registered under the name of the Social-Democratic Party in late 2002.  Chairman of the Social-Democratic Party is Rahmatillo Zoyirov and the party reportedly has 7,500 members.

The party backbone members reportedly include practicing lawyers from the legal firm Sipar and the party leader Rahmatillo Zoyirov is the head of Legal Consortium of Tajikistan.