New Turkmen Boss Pledges to Open Up

Rather than ape the ways of his dictatorial predecessor, Turkmenistan's President vows "development of private ownership and entrepreneurship" and other reforms

It's not easy to follow in the tracks of one of the world's most infamous tyrants.

This is the task facing Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, now into his second month as president of Turkmenistan.

Turkmen watchers and opposition figures, many of them now living abroad and eagerly following events back home, wonder whether the new leader will keep his promise to work for a better future or continue down the path of the dictatorial Saparmurat Niyazov.

The question is difficult to answer since little is known about the new president.

Berdymukhammedov was born in 1957 in the village of Babarap. He graduated from the dentistry faculty of the Turkmen State Medical Institute and later completed his medical doctorate in Moscow. He began his career in dentistry in 1980, and in 1995 became head of the dentistry center of the Turkmen Health Ministry. In 1997, Berdymukhammedov was appointed health minister, and in 2001 he was named deputy prime minister and put in charge of implementing Niyazov's order to close all hospitals outside Ashgabat and fire thousands of health workers.

When Niyazov died, he took over as acting president instead of Ovezgeldy Atayev, the speaker of parliament, to whom the office should have fallen under the constitution. Atayev was put under arrest right after Niyazov's death and sentenced to five years in prison by the Supreme Court of Turkmenistan in late February for "driving to suicide" his would-be daughter-in-law, according to the Ferghana.ru news agency.

Political analysts and opposition leaders described the subsequent presidential election in February as "falsified" and "unfair."

Berdymukhammedov was sworn in on 14 February immediately after election officials announced that he had won nearly 90 percent of the votes in an election held three days earlier.

ANOTHER LIBERAL NIKITA?
"Berdymukhammedov can become another Nikita Khrushchev," Satpayev said. "Members of today's Turkmen elite will not allow him to be another Turkmenbashi because it would be dangerous for them."

Khrushchev succeeded Josef Stalin after the death of the longtime tyrant. He amnestied political prisoners, eased the state's interference in private life, and denounced Stalin's personality cult.

Berdymukhammedov "will have to undo Niyazov's personality cult, otherwise someone else will replace him," Bairam Shikhmuradov, the human rights officer of the opposition Republican Party of Turkmenistan, who lives in Moscow, told TOL.

Shikhmuradov is the son of former foreign minister Boris Shikhmuradov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with an alleged attempt on Niyazov's life in 2002. Although he described the February election as "unfair," he said, "The people have waited for freedom for too long. Freedom appeared on the scene and it would be very difficult to take it away from them [now]."

Other opposition politicians are more skeptical about Berdymukhammedov's aptitude for starting a thaw in Turkmenistan.

Parahat Yklymov, the Sweden-based acting chairman of an opposition body, the Foreign Committee of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Turkmenistan, said, "Khrushchev had great personal charisma and possessed outstanding leadership qualities. Berdymukhammedov has not been noticed as a person resembling Khrushchev in these qualities but he can prove to be such a man in the future."

Meanwhile, Berdymukhammedov himself is trying hard not to be seen as a new Khrushchev. In an interview he gave to Turkmenistan magazine after his inauguration, he said, "Having the example of the first president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Turkmenbashi, it is difficult to assume that someone else can be a bigger authority in politics and the affairs of state."

FIRST STEPS
Nevertheless, as soon as he was sworn in, the new president began making changes. He signed a decree introducing compulsory 10-year education, restoring a year of schooling cut by Niyazov, and opened the first Internet cafes in Ashgabat.

But in interviews with TOL, experts were split on whether Berdymukhammedov will in fact keep his promises.