Turkmen vote

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it, Turkmens -- that is, the citizens of Turkmenistan -- went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president. The previous president, Saparmurat Niyazov, died in December. He had ruled the country since 1985, when it was still a Soviet republic. He was a brutal authoritarian dictator who manufactured a cult of personality to sustain his perpetual rule. He was, in fact, the country's president-for-life. (Here's an obituary at the BBC. It includes examples of his "bizarre laws," including a ban on music.)

If there's a country that comes close to North Korea, Turkmenistan may be it.

Here's a statue of Niyazov the Turkmenbashi, leader of all Turkmens:

He spent elaborately on projects of self-glorification at the expense of the people. Here -- irony of ironies -- is the so-called House of Free Creativity in Ashgabat. (It was dedicated to the free press. Needless to say, there is no free press in Turkmenistan.)

Required reading in Turkmenistan is Niyazov's own Ruhnama, or Book of the Soul: "Ruhnama is compulsory, imposed on religious communities and society generally. The work is the main component of education from primary school to university. Knowledge of the text – up to the ability to recite passages from it exactly – is required for passing education exams, holding any state employment, and to qualify for a driving license. Public criticism of or even insufficient reverence to the text was seen as the equivalent to showing disrespect to the former president himself, and harshly punished by dispossession, imprisonment or torture of the offender or the offender's whole family if the violation was grave enough."

For more images of the Niyazov cult, see here.

But back to the election:

Six candidates were running for president, all of them from the same party, the Democratic Party, Niyazov's party. It is Turkmenistan's only official political party. The nominee of the opposition Republican Party, largely a party-in-exile, was not approved to run in the election. In other words, there is still no opposition in Turkmenistan. Niyazov may have died, but one-party authoritarianism continues. There may have been an election, but there was no democracy. It was all a farce.

The likely winner of the "election" is former dentist Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow, the acting president since Niyazov's death. That's him on the left. Judging from what I've read about him (and from this one rather unflattering photo), Turkmenistan is still in serious trouble. Or, at least, the Turkmen people are. Their lives likely won't improve. And they may get worse. What is to become of Turkmenistan now?

The new president will be announced and sworn in tomorrow. We'll have an update at that time.