ASHKABAD – Turkmenistan declared yesterday that its weekend parliamentary election was a democratic milestone.
However, only state-approved candidates ran and the West’s main election watchdog had said a genuine contest was impossible.
The government in the gas-rich Central Asian country said the turnout for Sunday’s vote was 94 per cent and it had ushered in a new era of openness.
However, a media rights group said Turkmenistan’s “police state methods” had not changed.
It was not clear when the election results would be issued, although with only one party running, plus a few state-approved independents, the outcome was not in doubt.
State news agency Turkmen Khabarlary said the results would be announced “in the coming days”.
Turkmenistan has close ties to Moscow in the gas sector and depends on Soviet-built pipelines for exports. It has made cautious overtures to the West since autocratic ruler Saparmurat Niyazov died in 2006 after an eccentric 21-year reign.
His successor, President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has promised reform to attract foreign investors and the election was central to this plan.
The government’s stated aim was to create a bigger and more powerful parliament that would have a greater say in national decision-making.
“The elections that took place in the atmosphere of openness . . . and gave voters a wide range of choices became a new step on the path of strengthening democratic principles in Turkmen society,” the state news agency said.
Reporters Without Borders, a media rights group, said in a statement: “The perpetuation of the regime’s police state methods show that the progress Turkmenistan has supposedly made in terms of democratisation is in fact very limited and cosmetic.”
US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, one of the few western media operating in Turkmenistan, complained before the election that the authorities were cutting off reporters’ phones and monitoring their movements.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) did not send a full monitoring mission, saying a genuine contest was impossible. OSCE officials declined yesterday to comment further on the election.
“Elections are supposed to provide a meaningful choice among candidates, among the policies they propose,” said Maria Lisitsyna, a researcher with US-based group Human Rights Watch.
“Meaningful choice is challenging when most of candidates represent one movement headed by the president who is also head of the party.”
Reporters Without Borders called Turkmenistan, with North Korea, an “unchanging hell” in its latest global press freedom report, saying its population “is cut off from the world and is subjected to propaganda worthy of a bygone age”.
The Turkmen opposition is mostly in exile and has shown little interest in the election. No opposition leaders could be reached for comment. – (Reuters)