Turkmenistan to hold snap elections after Berdymukhamedov broaches succession
Turkmenistan will hold snap presidential elections after the country’s authoritarian leader announced he is ready to relinquish power to younger people.
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s statement that a new generation should direct the country suggests that his son Serdar would succeed him.
Serdar Berdymukhamedov has risen through a series of increasingly prominent government posts and is now the deputy chairman of the Cabinet.
The presidential election is to be held on March 12, the parliament declared on Saturday.
No election in post-Soviet Turkmenistan has been considered genuinely competitive.
While eight candidates ran against Berdymukhamedov in the last election in 2017, all expressed support for his government, and Berdymukhamedov tallied more than 97% of the vote.
A trained dentist, Berdymukhamedov came to power in 2006 after the death of the eccentric Saparmurat Niyazov, known for totalitarian decrees banning public internet access, erecting a rotating gold statue in his image in the capital Ashgabat, or renaming the months of the year after himself and his mother, among other things.
Although Berdymukhamedov revoked a number of his predecessor's decisions, he established a pervasive cult of personality similar to Niyazov, adopting the nickname Arkadag, meaning 'protector' in Turkmen.
Berdymukhamedov was also accused of similar totalitarian leanings, with many human rights organisations considering Turkmenistan to be one of the most closed-off societies in the world.
Freedom House has consistently ranked the country at or near the bottom of its Freedom in the World rankings since its independence in 1991. In its 2020 Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkmenistan as 179th out of 180 countries
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