Turkmen voters went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president. The previous president, Saparmurat Niyazov, died in December. He had ruled the country as a brutal authoritarian dictator with a bizarre cult of personality since 1985, when it was still a Soviet republic.
If there’s a country that comes close to North Korea, Turkmenistan may be it.
Acting President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (there are alternate spellings of his names) won the election with over 89 percent of the vote. He beat five other candidates. All six are members of Turkmenistan’s Democratic Party, Niyazov’s party, the country’s only legal party. It was an election, but there was no democracy.
Over at The Reaction, I have a longer post up with context and background, along with a variety of links and images. See here.