IT IS TRUE that he's two years previous his nation’s official retirement age. However at 64 Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan’s president, remains to be a spring rooster by the requirements of his contemporaries. Islam Karimov dominated Uzbekistan till his loss of life at 78 in 2016. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the previous president of Kazakhstan, was the identical age earlier than he made approach, in 2019, for a youthful chief. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s 69-year-old president, reveals no signal of slowing down.
So it was a shock when, in a speech on February eleventh marking his fifteenth anniversary as president, Mr Berdymukhamedov introduced the “troublesome determination” he had made. It was time, he stated, to offer “younger leaders” an opportunity, so long as they “have been introduced up in a non secular surroundings and in accordance with the demanding wants of recent instances”. A snap election shall be held on March twelfth.
The crushing of something resembling an opposition, the suppression of even delicate dissent, and the truth that the president received the final ballot with 98% of the vote recommend that such youths is perhaps arduous to search out. However the ruling occasion didn't have far to look. It instantly nominated as its candidate Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the president’s 40-year-old son. The stage has been set for Central Asia’s first hereditary succession for the reason that period of the Khans.
The youthful Berdymukhamedov (pictured), an engineer by coaching, has lengthy been groomed for the function. After stints within the overseas ministry and as a diplomat, he turned a member of the rubber-stamp parliament in 2016. He rose swiftly to turn into a regional governor, earlier than being propelled into the cupboard as minister for trade in 2020. Final yr he was elevated to the place of deputy prime minister. But it was not till September that he gained an important qualification by turning 40, the minimal age for a president.
Serdar could have a full inbox as soon as he takes over. The financial system is in grim form. Meals shortages plague the nation. The market worth of the foreign money is six instances decrease than the official charge. And it's over-reliant on gasoline for exports and China for commerce. The inheritor obvious could battle in much less apparent methods, too. His father is a flamboyant chief, recognized for macho stunts that prop up his cult of character. In contrast, Serdar is a picket speaker who dislikes being within the public eye.
Helpfully, the outgoing president just isn't planning to retreat to a lifetime of fishing and horse-breeding. He'll retain the chairmanship of the higher home of parliament. But the explanation for his retirement stays unclear; the one rationalization provided was that he had lived longer than the Prophet Muhammad (Turkmenistan is generally Muslim). The true trigger might be ailing well being: an extended disappearance from public view in 2019 sparked hypothesis that he was being handled for a severe situation. The thought could also be to permit Serdar time to consolidate energy whereas his father remains to be round to guard him. In any case, the president has made it clear that the change represents continuity moderately than reform. Or as he put it in his farewell speech, quoting a Turkmen proverb, “The traditions of the fathers are priceless, and whoever loves them loves the motherland!” ■
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