Election Observation Begins in Turkmenistan

A United Nations election observer mission will travel to Turkmenistan on December 12 to take part in the upcoming parliamentary elections, a vote that could prove to be the country's most scrutinized ballot to date.

Three members of the UN Secretariat will join more than 40 other official and unofficial observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union and the United States to monitor the December 14 election, the Turkmen State News Agency reports.

The CIS mission has been in Turkmenistan since November 25, and has toured the regions, meeting with voters, candidates and administrative staff. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights' team arrived in Ashgabat on December 7. The five-member mission, lead by Bulgarian diplomat Nikolai Vulchanov, a long-time observation mission chief, "will follow the electoral process and assess the impact of recent amendments to Turkmenistan's election legislation," as well as visit regional polling centers, according to an OSCE press release.

Opposition news sites, however, contend that the international interest will do little to prevent the election from falling short of democratic standards. Government interference in the registration of potential candidates has been rampant, Chrono-tm.org charges. None of the observer missions arrived in Turkmenistan in time to register the practice, the opposition says.