Serdar Berdymukhamedov, 40, Economy Minister of Turkmenistan, confirmed on Monday (14) that he will run for president next month. Considering the possible results and the candidate’s last name, however, the announcement should be a mere formality.
Serdar is the son of Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, 64, a dictator who has been in power since 2007 and announced over the weekend that he would not run for a new term after 15 years at the helm of the former Soviet republic.
In a country where institutions are heavily controlled by the State, the election is closed: the father won the 2007 elections with around 89% of the votes, was reelected in 2012 with 97% and, again with 97%, was reelected to a third term in 2017.
As the urn will feature a Berdymukhamedov again, with just another name, the result on March 12 should be none other than Serdar’s victory.
The annual Freedom in the World report, which measures political rights and civil liberties of nations, gave Turkmenistan a score of 2 out of a possible 100 — North Korea received a score of 3.
The Central Asian country is defined in the document as “a repressive authoritarian state where political rights and civil liberties are almost completely denied in practice. Elections are strictly controlled, the economy is dominated by the state and corruption is systemic.”
In 2021, the country gained a position in the NGO Reporters Without Borders’ ranking of press freedom: it rose from 179th to 178th (out of a total of 180 countries), compared to the previous year.
The dictator, known for his eccentricities – such as his obsession with horses and his habit of releasing music videos in which he is the main star – had been the dentist of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, who invited him to be minister of health before to die.
The son, Serdar, was quickly promoted by his father to political positions. He was a member of Parliament and also governor of one of the five Turkmen provinces, until he reached the chair responsible for the economy and also for the country’s energy sector, basically dedicated to the export of natural gas — mainly to China, but also to Russia.
In March 2020, Gurbanguly showed signs of his control over Turkmenistan: while the world was experiencing the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic and already had 800,000 infected and 39,000 dead from the disease, the dictator banned the use of the word coronavirus in the country. Turkmen territory.
At the time, the police could arrest, for example, anyone who used the word in a public place, even if it was only during a conversation with friends.
Although he is preparing the political legacy for his son, the dictator indicated that he should not give up another position he accumulates, that of president of one of the country’s legislative houses. It would be a move similar to that made recently in another former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan.
There, Kassim-Jomart Tokayev succeeded the long-lived dictator Nursultan Nazarbaiev, who until a recent wave of protests, lived as “father of the nation” and had great power in the country’s powerful Security Council – he was eventually removed from office.
