I walk along the quiet concrete ring road, trying to find a car to take me to the offices of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP). Popular and enterprising, the IRP would be the government if there were free elections. I pass a beggar in a burqa, a one-eyed man renting out some scales for a few coins, smoking street urchins and mating stray dogs. Grassy gardens laid by keen Russian hands are overgrown, hiding needles and loitering teenage boys picking up fag ends. I hailed a passing car that has suspension problems and no wing-mirrors. 

Hamid drives his Soviet-era rust-bucket towards the IRP office, skirting the freshly- laid gardens that encircle the golden-domed, marbled-walled presidential edifice. He asks me if I trust in God. "I decided to go to the mosque with my friends this year. The young people do this. Many, many of us. The imams help. Teach us. The government just steals." 

We pass poster after poster. President Rakhmon wearing a worker's cap is pointing forward like Lenin. He is the children's friend like Stalin. The regime thinks it has the answer: a gigantic dam built by financial contributions from all citizens. The state is demanding that everybody buy shares, paid out of monthly salaries which average £40. Reports circulate of money being deducted from bank accounts, people being turned away from schools, hospitals, any government institution, without the necessary proof that they have paid up. 

A senior Western diplomat says: "Raising money from your own population for a project that could theoretically offer a solution to chronic energy problems is fine. Tajikistan has great potential for hydro-electricity, but you need an officially recognised body for this money to go to. We don't know where it's going. Civil servants were told that to keep their jobs they had to contribute bigger loans. They couldn't afford them. So they turned to deeper corruption, making everything worse."  

Outside the modest HQ of the IRP, three tightly veiled girls are milling about the door, but my driver has no time for sensitivity. "I'll wait here and blast out some loud pop. They'll love that." A sickly, bald, very short man opens the door and clasps my hand. "Peace be with you brother." I am unsure if he is a recovering heroin addict or cancerous. He has the eyes of someone who believes himself saved. "The chief of the political council is upstairs. Let me take you." 

We pass a large hall converted into a mosque. The floor is carpeted in scores of colourful rugs and it smells of feet. Khikmatullo Saifullozoda, the IRP leader, is what you would call "a people person". Charming and with the glare of conviction, his eyes lock on to mine in his drab, spartan office.