The fact that the power succession in Turkmenistan has been chosen a long time ago is not a secret. Incumbent President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has been carefully preparing the substitute for himself, namely his son Serdar Berdymukhamedov, and the transition of power has been the matter of time. Now the time has come.
What has induced Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to start transition of power right now is unknown. But the announcement that some very important event for the country was voiced on January 7, 2022, right amid the tragic events in neighbouring Kazakhstan. On that day, the president at the session of the cabinet of ministers declared that he was calling the extraordinary session of Milli Gengesh of Turkmenistan (Milli Gengesh consists of the upper house of parliament – Khalk Maslakhaty and the lower house – Medzhlis of Turkmenistan – author’s note) “to make far-reaching decisions for the country.”
Back then, the president said for the first time that they needed to adopt a new development programme for the country for the next 30 years and “give way to young people” who would be realising the programme. Moreover, vice prime minister of economy Serdar Berdymukhamedov was ordered to draft the programme. Afterwards, it was clear that the transition of power in Turkmenistan was in its final stage and the winner in the process was chosen in advance.
Serdar Berdymukhamedov was started to be prepared for the presidential office a very long time ago, almost when his father came to power. Serdar studied in a range of diplomacy universities, worked in diplomatic missions of Turkmenistan in Europe, held offices in the ministry of foreign affairs, and then had a job related to the management of various sectors of economy, and also he became the member of Medzhlis and headed the central region of the country – Akhal Velayat, the key source of manpower, home to akhal-teke tribe, where most members of the civil service are recruited from.
To move Serdar up in career, a few laws have been amended to let him circumvent restrictions when he was holding the political office under the supervision of a close relative and had a chance to have a post in the executive branch and at the same time being the member of parliament, which had been prohibited earlier. As a result, Serdar Berdymukhamedov has been prepared to take the office of president at any time.
What has triggered the decision-making on the launch of the final stage of transition was not voiced in public. Until recently, the sitting president has publicly demonstrated a great physical shape, actively held sessions of the cabinet of ministers and other meetings and conferences, getting to the bottom of every issue – from lantern design and public transport stops in new housing areas to the inspection of large-scale constructions, and demonstrating his well-known care for micromanagement.
Local observers have not seen any objective reasons for the transition of power, and the authorities assigned the slogan to this year “The age of people with Arkadag!” (Arkadag is a common title of President Berdymukhamedov meaning “benefactor” – author’s note), which has made Arkadag non-competitive at least for the current year. On the other hand, many have noted low political weight of Serdar, the lack of real achievements and successes in the posts he has held in the last few years. And it is not his guilt – it was impossible to become an independent political figure amid the personality cult, even if you are the son of that personality cult. Moreover, Serdar have not had time to establish working relations with the elites and security officials, who do not have a consensus about admitting Serdar as their leader.
On February 11, the extraordinary (in fact, emergency) closed session of both houses of the parliament was held and some results became known only from the edited footage. The text of the President’s speech became available only late at night. He described the new programme of socioeconomic development of the country for the next 30 years and suggested calling it “The revival of the new age of the powerful state: National Programme of socioeconomic development of Turkmenistan for 2022-2052.”
Then, the president thanked the people for trusting him and said that he has been in power for 15 years and he would like to focus on his work in the upper house of parliament, of which he is the chair. By the way, President was elected as deputy of the upper house of parliament last year in violation of article 73 of the Constitution of Turkmenistan, which prohibits the president to be elected as a deputy of the legislative and representative power. However, in his speech, President said nothing about it in substance, neither about his dismissal, nor about new elections. But he developed his point very carefully by saying that the younger generation should be given way. The decree of Milli Gengesh on holding the extraordinary presidential election on March 12 and on launching of all relevant procedures, including nomination of presidential candidates, was published only on the following day.
However, everyone understands that Serdar Berdymukhamedov may not have serious rivals. It is difficult to imagine that someone can establish their campaign office one month before the election, raise necessary money, prepare the programme, and hold a full-scale election campaign. However, Serdar already has the socioeconomic development programme for 30 years, which he prepared being the vice prime minister by order of the president with a group of specialists, and which was approved by Milli Gengesh as the official doctrine of the state and which he will use as his election agenda.
It’s no less important that the incumbent president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov will be securing his son from the post of the chair of the upper house of parliament (Khalk Maslakhaty) by controlling the legislative and representative powers, and by inheriting the presidential power in case of unforeseen circumstances.
However, it is more important to evaluate not only the preferences that Serdar will have when he comes to power, but the load of problems that is left to him by his father. Turkmenistan is a “toxic” state being at the end of all rankings – freedom of speech, freedom of internet, development of democratic institutions. And by the level of corruption, non-transparent economy, and restrictions in doing business, Turkmenistan leads the rankings or is on the top positions. The country has a misbalanced economy and constant interruptions in food supplies, delays in salary payments, no free currency conversion, and “black market” dollar rate differs from the official rate by 5 to 15 times and is very volatile.
The country has no generally accepted statistics. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund refuse to include economic reports of Turkmenistan into their reports for the second year in a row because of absolute distrust to information provided by the authorities of Turkmenistan. The census of population held in 2012 is a secret information. Indirect data on out-migration shows that in the last ten years nearly two million people left the country and according to the estimations of the preliminary census held last year nearly 2.5 million people live in the country, which is a record decline in population, which is the direct sign of depopulation.
However, the earnings from the sale of oil and gas resources is a sealed book and 80 per cent of them bypass the budget and get lost in absolutely non-transparent extra-budgetary funds. Whereas the state budget published is available on 3-4 pages only. Serious investors avoid Turkmenistan and only few raw materials producers are ready to press their luck by relying on getting access to huge gas and large oil reserves of the country.
This is the heritage of the new president. His reputation and the future of the state will obviously depend on how he can carry out reforms and whether he has political will, political weight to develop and implement such reforms. This will be the hardest time for him to do, rather than taking part in the election campaign with the result known in advance.