The son of Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, then-Turkmenistan International Minister Serdar Berdimuhamedov seems to be on throughout Commonwealth of Unbiased States (CIS) nations council of heads of International Affairs Ministers in Minsk, Belarus on Friday, April 6, 2018.
Credit score: AP Photograph/Sergei Grits, File
After 15 years in energy, wielding authoritarian insurance policies which have saved Turkmenistan remoted and on the backside of human rights rankings, Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has determined to step down and switch his duties to his son Serdar. A snap presidential election can be held on March 12 and Serdar has already been nominated because the ruling social gathering’s candidate.
The timing comes as a shock. Berdimuhamedov has spent the final a number of years grooming Serdar for a dynastic succession, selling him up via authorities ranks to more and more high-level positions, together with deputy prime minister and chairman of the Supreme Management Chamber, which controls authorities spending. However he had two years left in his present time period and will have run for reelection. Furthermore, Berdimuhamedov has spent years constructing his personal cult of persona just like that of his predecessor and Turkmenistan’s solely different president since independence, Saparmurat Niyazov.
Resolution-making processes in Turkmenistan are notoriously opaque and it’s unclear why Berdimuhamedov determined to maneuver forward now together with his succession plan. Potential causes embody his well being, as he has suffered from diabetes for years, or being rattled by the current unrest in Kazakhstan, which started with widespread protests over rising financial and social disparities. Though protests are uncommon in Turkmenistan, the nation has been gripped by a extreme financial disaster for a number of years, and there are indicators that widespread dissatisfaction is rising.
Serdar’s victory within the election is past doubt. Turkmenistan doesn’t have a genuinely multiparty system and has by no means held an election that met worldwide requirements. Since independence, each presidents have received with over 95 p.c votes, and the Group for Safety and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has assessed that the nation lacks the stipulations for real democratic processes.
The actual query is to what extent Serdar’s coming to energy might open the door for any political, financial or social reforms, and whether or not the worldwide group, together with the USA, might seize the second to strengthen engagement with Turkmenistan and promote reform and improvement.
Serdar is prone to keep his father’s insurance policies and unchallenged energy. He’s already identified for the authoritarian approach he exercised his authority in his a number of positions throughout the Turkmen administration. Furthermore, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov virtually actually will hold maintain of the levers of energy, a lot as his counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan did after resigning in 2019. There are already experiences that Berdimuhamedov will stay in his positions as speaker of the Senate and as chairman of the Safety Council. It will restrict Serdar’s room to provoke any sweeping adjustments that run counter to his father’s views.
Nevertheless, regardless of their commonalities, there could also be sufficient distinction between father and son to open a sliver of alternative for change. Serdar not solely has extra and broader authorities expertise than his father did when he got here to energy, however he has additionally spent important time exterior of Turkmenistan, together with in Moscow, the place he attended the Russian International Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy and was connected to the Turkmen Embassy, and in Geneva, the place he attended the Geneva Middle for Safety Coverage. He’s additionally of a distinct era, one used to the larger openness of the digital age. When asserting that he would step apart, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov burdened that it was essential to flip over energy to “younger leaders … in accordance with the excessive necessities of modernity.”
Serdar possible is not going to be ready to problem the essential parameters of his predecessors’ overseas coverage, such because the nation’s official standing of neutrality or the position of China via its investments within the fuel sector. His time in Moscow might have resulted in stronger ties to the Russian authorities. Nonetheless, his expertise overseas might make him extra open to overseas companions, together with within the West, and his want to handle at the very least among the critical financial and social points going through the nation could lead on him to give attention to creating overseas financial relations, particularly by growing cooperation with overseas nations and traders.
The scenario within the nation is dire. Hydrocarbon accounts for nine-tenths of Turkmenistan’s export earnings, and the 2014 fall in world hydrocarbon costs significantly diminished the state finances. This resulted in weakening the social welfare system, in addition to the already frail training and well being methods, and brought on critical meals insecurity, resulting in rationing within the state shops on which a majority of the impoverished inhabitants relies upon. This dire financial scenario has additionally resulted in large unemployment, now estimated at 60 p.c, particularly amongst younger individuals and in rural areas. The shortage of alternatives has led almost half of the inhabitants to to migrate, a quantity virtually unprecedented in a rustic throughout peacetime, leaving just some 2.8 million individuals out of a beforehand estimated inhabitants of 6 million.
Higher openness might enable U.S. firms to have interaction in numerous sectors and contribute to the diversification of Turkmenistan’s financial system, which is presently virtually completely pushed by the extractive sector. An elevated presence of U.S. and different Western firms might additionally carry extra social company engagement; vocational coaching might be notably helpful given the poor training system. An excellent modest opening might enable for some elevated funding in different sectors, for instance training, well being, and surroundings.
However this elevated engagement should include larger efforts to advertise democratic reform, nonetheless small to start with, and respect for human rights. This might be carried out bilaterally or although worldwide organizations such because the OSCE, which already has a small presence on the bottom. An excellent place to begin can be to have Serdar start to supply data on those that have disappeared within the nation’s jail system for greater than 20 years, beginning with two former overseas ministers: Boris Shikhmuradov and Batyr Berdiev. This could be one of the simplest ways that Serdar might sign his intention to the worldwide group that his authorities is able to strengthen relations with the West.
The USA and others have to be cautious to not fall into the lure of getting investments and even well-meant engagement misused by the kleptocratic system of corruption created by the primary two presidents of Turkmenistan to the advantage of their households and different elites. Serdar himself has been a part of this technique, and together with his father behind him, possible will proceed it. As an alternative, the USA and different like-minded nations ought to give attention to investing in sectors that profit the overall inhabitants greater than the political regime and its elites.
After all, with out important reform of the authoritarian nature of the federal government, U.S. room for maneuver and the affect of worldwide engagement is prone to stay modest. It might end up that Serdar is rather like his father, and nothing will change in Turkmenistan. However even when the probabilities of making a distinction are slim, they’re value taking. The individuals of Turkmenistan deserve it.