Eurasia Insight:
TURKMENISTAN: SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION "STAGE-MANAGED"
2/12/07

The conduct of Turkmenistan’s special presidential election offered no hint of the reform intentions voiced by Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the country’s interim leader and the vote’s likely winner. Election officials announced that almost 99 percent of eligible voters cast ballots on February 11. Opposition leaders derided the vote as thoroughly “stage-managed,” and international observers criticized the election as a missed opportunity to make a goodwill gesture.

Turkmen officials billed the election as the first-ever multi-candidate vote for president in the country’s post-Soviet history. Berdymukhammedov -- who was named interim president following the sudden death of former Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov in late December -- faced five challengers, all of them members of the ruling elite. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The official results are to be released February 13, with the new president to be inaugurated the following day.

Given the government’s efforts to tightly control the campaign, no one doubts that Berdymukhammedov will be the one taking the oath of office on the February 14. “Much has been made of the fact that the vote was Turkmenistan's first multi-candidate presidential election. This is true, but it is simply a distraction,” said Erika Dailey, director of the Turkmenistan Project at the New York-based Open Society Institute.” The implausible reported turn-out [along with] the absence of free media or alternative candidates signal that the election itself is not a fresh start. It is history repeating itself.” (EurasiaNet and the Turkmenistan Project operate under the auspices of OSI).

During the seven-week period between Niyazov’s death and the special election, Berdymukhammedov spoke repeatedly about the need to implement changes, raising hopes that as president he would make a drastic departure from the deceased dictator’s totalitarian-isolationist policy course. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The vote, however, was conducted in the best Soviet tradition, thus raising questions about the genuineness of Berdymukhammedov’s reform pledges.

The Watan.ru website quoted a Turkmen opposition leader living in exile, Nurmuhammet Hanamov, as saying the “momentum of Soviet tradition” guided the election. “Authorities’ methods have not changed markedly and therefore it is easy to predict the results,” Hanamov said.

Avdy Kuliyev, another Turkmen political leader living abroad, called the vote a “stage-managed drama … being played out on a pre-arranged stage,” the Itar-Tass news agency reported. “We consider the election … illegal and undemocratic, and of course, we cannot recognize it.”

Kuliyev predicted that the Turkmen Central Election Commission (CEC) would “distribute” the ballots cast according to “an order from the top,” adding that Berdymukhammedov would likely receive around 80 percent of the vote. An indicator that Turkmen authorities were intent on choreographing the outcome was evident in the fact that the government did not provide a means for Turkmen citizens living in Russia to cast ballots in Moscow, Itar-Tass reported.

The official reaction to the vote was self-congratulatory. According to the Turkmen government’s website, the CEC attributed the nearly perfect turnout total to the “high organization level of the election process in the capital [Ashgabat] and in all of Turkmenistan’s five regions.”

Meanwhile, other official Turkmen sources maintained the pretence of the vote being conducted in an open manner, subject to close international scrutiny. One state-controlled television channel, Altyn Asyr, or Golden Age, reported that “numerous foreign journalists” were at polling stations “observing the course of elections.” In the weeks prior to the vote, Turkmen government officials announced that foreign journalists would be welcome to observe the balloting, but virtually no outside journalist seeking to cover the election received a visa to do so.

In a statement released February 9, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the imposition of “restrictions” on foreign and domestic journalists hoping to cover the election. The statement quoted CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon as saying that “the press is systematically impeded from doing its work” in Turkmenistan.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which operates an information gathering network inside Turkmenistan, reported that the turnout total appeared to be dramatically inflated, according to the observations of its correspondents. Hudayberdy Orazov, who lives in Sweden and heads a Turkmen opposition movement called Watan, said that government critics possessed “quite enough evidence from Turkmenistan confirming that voters were much less active than claimed,” the opposition-affiliated Watan.ru website reported.

Dailey characterized the February 11 vote as a “primary” election, run by the ruling party. A genuine presidential vote, she added, would permit opposition leaders to participate, something they were prohibited from doing February 11. “Given the absence of choice, the unreformed nature of power in Turkmenistan, and the levels of fear and apathy, the true will of the people in Turkmenistan is yet to be determined,” Dailey said.

Given the government’s performance in the vote, there are growing doubts that Berdymukhammedov’s reform effort will meet even the minimal expectations of Western observers.

On February 12, the Turkmen government announced that it was preparing to open the first Internet café in Ashgabat, in accordance with a Berdymukhammedov vow to give citizens greater access to the outside world. The website of the Russian newspaper Pravda, the former official organ of the Soviet Communist Party, quoted an unnamed Turkmen official as saying the government intended to “make quick, if limited steps away” from Niyazov’s personality cult.

However, the appearance of an Internet café doesn’t necessarily mean that the government is prepared to ease its stranglehold on information. Another Russian website, Lenta.ru, reported that the Internet café would consist of five computers located at the Central Post Office. Lenta.ru cited Turkmentelecom, the state-controlled service provider, as the source of its information. The possibility of hooking home-based PCs to the World Wide Web “has not yet been discussed” by officials, the Russian website reported.

If Berdymukhammedov defies expectations and promotes genuine reforms that open up Turkmen society, he would gain the backing of exiled opposition leaders, one of them, Hanamov, said. “We would support him in every possible way,” Hanamov told Watan.ru. “We are struggling for reforms, and not for a seat.

“We strongly doubt that the promised reforms will be carried out, but we hope common sense will prevail,” Hanamov continued. “We hope that common sense will prevail.”

Kuliyev indicated that regardless of Berdymukhammedov’s reform intentions, the Turkmen opposition would reach out to the new president in an effort to open a dialogue. “We may not recognize the election, but these people [Turkmen government officials] do exist, and we should try to develop cooperation in order to improve people’s living standards.”