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Eurasia
March 30, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
Turkmenistan votes for a new 'rubber-stamp' parliament
Kanat Shaku in Almaty
Turkmen citizens voted for a new parliament
on March 26 in an election dominated by three parties and some independents. However, all
of the candidates support Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, thus presenting no real opposition.
While the 125-seat Mejlis is merely seen as a rubber-stamping body for the 60-year-old Turkmen leader, some Turkmenistan watchers note that the election may help to pave the way for the president’s son, Serdar Berdymukhammedov, 36, to eventually succeed him. Standing to retain his seat in parlia- ment, Serdar was one of the candidates in the elec- tions. Rumours about Serdar’s potential future as Turkmenistan's president have long been subject to much speculation among political analysts.
The national elections committee reported turnout as exceeding 85%. Voters at polling stations were greeted with national music, dance shows and snacks.
Serdar has headed a parliamentary committee
on legal affairs since March 2017 after becoming a lawmaker last November. His recent meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at a rare summit of Central Asian leaders — his father was away on visits to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) attempting to raise investment
for Turkmenistan, currently in the midst of an economic crisis — provided more evidence that he is being groomed for to succeed his father, who is commonly referred to as Arkadag, or “protector” and officially described as overseeing an era of “might and happiness”. Little is publicly known about Serdar, but it is established that he trained
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (left) lately sent his son Serdar to meet Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (right) in his stead at a summit, adding to speculation that Serdar is being groomed for the presidential succession.
as an agricultural engineer and later studied diplomacy in Russia and Switzerland.
In January, the Washington-based Freedom House NGO assessed Turkmenistan as among the 12 “worst of the worst countries” for political freedom and civil liberties. None of the country’s previous elections have been deemed free or fair by Western monitors and Berdymukhammedov, who has run the former Soviet Republic since 2007 while toler- ating no dissent, won his third presidential term in February last year with 97% of the vote.
Most of the candidates in the election represented one of the three registered political parties. These are the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan (DPT, formerly the Communist Party), the Party of Indus- trialists and Entrepreneurs, founded in 2012, and the Agrarian Party, founded in 2014, and taking part in an election for the first time. A small number of can- didates were put forward by public initiative groups.
The parliamentary election took place with no sign that the country of six million’s worsening budget and economic predicament are improving. The budget woes have continuously mounted within recent months with alarm bells sounding over scarce hard currency.
Officially reported Turkmen growth in 2017 stood at 6.5%, although the real state of the Turkmen economy is likely worse than in recent years, as continuous reports about the depleted budget have shown. The impact of low oil prices has taken a damaging toll on the monetary value of Turk- menistan's gas and oil exports, while a row over historical debts with Iran shut off one gas export