Francis Pike

Turkmenistan may emerge as a global powerbroker

The comically corrupt country's huge gas reserves could make it a significant international player

(Getty)

While the world is watching Ukraine, there is another former Soviet republic that has quietly undergone regime change. Turkmenistan’s 65-year-old former president, known, in the manner of a comic book superhero, as ‘The Protector’, stepped down in February. With Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s departure, the Mejlis Assembly duly called for elections on 12 March.

As regime changes go this one was hardly revolutionary. The Protector’s son, having just turned 40 (the minimum age at which a candidate can stand for the presidency) won the election at a canter. The only surprise was that Serdar, ‘The Son of the Nation’, won just 73 per cent of the vote compared to his father’s 97 per cent winning mandate in 2017. His nearest challenger was an anonymous university official who won 11 per cent. Perhaps the voters mistook him for the president’s son; Serdar, like his challenger, has the generic clean-cut looks and suiting of an IBM executive circa 1960.

The new president projects a charisma-free image. Like a fast-tracked corporate manager, his pro forma CV has included spells in the army, the foreign office, the energy ministry and the governorship of Ahal province. Serdar is a dour technocrat, a quietly spoken family man with four children. So far, so dull. But there is time for dictatorial foibles to emerge.

In 2006, after the suspicious death of Turkmenistan’s first post-Soviet president, Serdar’s father was seen as the nation’s saviour. His predecessor’s life-size gold statue, which rotated with the sun in Ashgabat’s main square, was dismantled. Meanwhile, Turkmenbashy’s random bans, which included circus performances, gold teeth, recorded music at weddings and listening to car radios, were abolished.

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Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the country’s new president (Getty)

Despite the eccentricities of its leaders, Turkmenistan is emerging as a power of sorts

After a brief interlude, Serdar’s father doubled down on Turkmanbashy’s eccentricity.

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