By Bruce Pannier

This is the second of a four-part series looking at Central Asia's
upcoming elections. In this report, RFE/RL's Bruce Pannier says that
with elections just five months away, prospects for genuine democracy
in Turkmenistan do not look promising.

Prague, 4 August 1999 (RFE/RL) -- With just five months to go before
Turkmenistan's parliamentary elections, there is little political
activity in the country and no real indication of who will run.
There is also growing evidence that candidates have already been
pre-approved -- though not yet announced -- by Turkmen President
Saparmurat Niyazov, who is commonly viewed as having absolute power in
the country. The vote on Dec. 12 is Turkmenistan's first for its
50-seat unicameral parliament since 1994.

Bess Brown works in the Ashgabat office of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). She says the National
Institute for Democratization has been conducting some voter
education. But, she says, it's not clear what voters are being told.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Brown said that neither her organization
-- which traditionally provides electoral assistance to countries --
nor other national or international groups are involved.

"The National Institute for Democratization, which is our neighbor
here...there have been some reports in [the newspaper] Neitralny
Turkmenistan about them doing voter education projects. But they have
said nothing to us about it. They've not asked us to assist them or
for any participation by other international organizations or by [the
United States Agency for International Development] USAID. They seem
to have approached no one. They're just doing it on their own, so I
don't know what exactly they're doing."

Brown says that although there is only one officially registered
political party in Turkmenistan -- the Democratic Party headed by
Niyazov -- there are likely to be contested elections in some
districts. She said this doesn't mean, however, that there will be
competing programs or points of view:

"I would expect that there will be multiple candidacies in each
electoral district. In other words, several different people running
for the same office. But, I suspect they won't have their own
distinctive programs and that there will probably be very little
difference between them."

In addition, she said, certain people would be discouraged from
attempting to get nominated. Only people who are officially approved
will actually be able to be nominated as candidates.

One potential safeguard, or at least an objective gauge of the level
of democracy in Turkmenistan, would be the participation of the OSCE
as electoral monitors.

Brown says, though, that her organization probably won't send monitors
because that would require an invitation from the Turkmen
leadership. Such an invitation is not expected.

"So far, there has been no request for an OSCE observation
mission. Earlier this year, the president met with the National
Institute for Democracy and said Turkmenistan would not invite outside
observers but that observers would be welcome if they wanted to
come. That's got it backward for the OSCE because the OSCE cannot
observe elections without a formal request from the country that is
having the elections. ...So, that's pretty much the end of our
possibility of being involved in the election procedure at all."

President Niyazov has said his country is heading toward democracy
along its own unique path and, so far, the preparations for
parliamentary elections support his comments.

It's unclear to those outside Turkmenistan, though, how the present
course can lead to genuine democracy.

Naz Nazar and Ayna Khallyeva of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service contributed
to this report.