August 2016: Angela Merkel and Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov give a press conference in Berlin, Germany. (c) Kay Nietfeld DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved,Should we pay any attention to Turkmenistan’s imminent presidential elections? No political drama is peppering the current campaign, which is predictably shaping up to be unfair competition. Fictional parties and subservient government agencies are fielding eight puppet candidates who, as next Sunday’s vote approaches, are likely to publicly declare their support for incumbent president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.
The absence of independent media, the exclusion of opposition candidates and the murky voting procedures empty Turkmenistan’s electoral exercise of any political significance. So don’t expect any nail-biting if you’re following the electoral returns, as Turkmenistan’s ruler smoothly sails towards another triumph. Instead, we are witnessing the culmination of a paradoxical process whereby Berdymukhamedov’s periodic re-elections embody the regime’s need for legitimacy.
The outcome might be predictable, but Turkmenistan’s 2017 election is taking place at a uniquely negative juncture in the country’s recent political history. Since 2014, the local economy has been crippled by an unprecedented economic crisis. The regime is manifestly ignoring this crisis while stage-managing Berdymukhamedov’s re-election in a further attempt to preserve the authoritarian status quo. Indeed, it is the leadership’s failure to acknowledge the wider context of this election that, to my mind, transforms this Sunday’s vote into a highly relevant political moment that challenges the fundamental viability of Turkmenistan’s authoritarian model.
