9 candidates are on the poll however Serdar Berdymukhamedov, son of the incumbent, is anticipated to triumph.
Voting is below means in Turkmenistan for a tightly managed snap election, with the son of outgoing President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov poised to win the poll within the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation.
9 candidates are on the poll within the republic of six million folks. Three-time President Berdymukhamedov, who tolerates no opposition and has dominated public life because the nation’s founding president died in 2006, has made means for his 40-year-old son Serdar Berdymukhamedov.
A state tv announcer confirming the start of voting at 7am (02:00 GMT) on Saturday stated the elections “will turn out to be but extra clear proof of the irreversibility of the method of democratisation of recent Turkmen society”.
Polling stations throughout the desert nation shut at 7pm (14:00 GMT).
Gurbanguly, 64, signalled his determination to step apart final month and permit “younger leaders” to control.
The 64-year-old chief advantages from a glitzy management cult that features a golden statue of him on horseback and elicits comparisons to North Korea – a rustic that has already witnessed two hereditary successions.
Turkmen state tv’s fawning celebrations of his hobbies – horse using, songwriting and rally automotive driving, to call a couple of – have made the so-called “protector” a phenomenon on international social media, all of that are blocked.
The chief, who claims that his nation has not suffered a single case of the coronavirus, stated final month that he needs to stay in politics in his position as chairman of the Turkmen parliament’s higher chamber.
A lot much less is understood about Serdar Berdymukhamedov, whose authorities promotions obtained little public consideration till he entered parliament in 2016.
Since then he has been a deputy international minister, the top of a province, and an trade and development minister.
Final yr he received a triple promotion, taking on roles as deputy cupboard chair, auditor common and member of the safety council.
Civil servant Selbi Nepesova, 39, informed AFP information company that Serdar Berdymukhamedov’s official biography proves he’s “probably the most skilled” of the candidates, regardless of being youthful than his rivals, most of whom are low-ranking authorities staff.
“Individuals who labored with him know extra about him than us easy folks. He could have his father shut by,” the Ashgabat resident stated, explaining her determination to vote for him.
Turkmenistan’s economic system is nearly wholly depending on gross sales of pure fuel, making it susceptible to exterior shocks which have crippled the buying energy of residents, who don’t have any entry to exhausting forex.
The nation sits on the world’s fourth-largest pure fuel reserves and exports fuel by pipelines to China and Russia.
Turkmen state media has virtually fully ignored the bloody battle happening in Europe.
However on Friday it referenced “difficult circumstances” in Ukraine in a report on the evacuation of Turkmen college students pressured to flee the nation.
Predictably, the mouthpiece gave the outgoing president credit score for making certain the evacuation.
The returning college students “expressed their deep honest gratitude to the chief of the nation for his really fatherly care”, the state data service TDH claimed.
Turkmenistan’s upcoming father-son change would be the first of its form in Central Asia, regardless of erstwhile predictions of household rule in Turkmenistan’s bigger neighbours Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
An inauguration ceremony has been scheduled for March 19, TDH said on Friday.
Throughout the Caspian Sea within the Caucasus area, Azerbaijan turned the primary ex-Soviet nation to ascertain a dynasty when its present president Ilham Aliyev took the helm upon father Heydar Aliyev’s demise in 2003.
Tajikistan, the bloc’s poorest successor state, is anticipated to observe an analogous path, with higher home head Rustam Emomali, 34, in pole place to succeed veteran chief Emomali Rahmon, 69, ought to Rahmon retire or show unable to fulfil his duties.