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PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN TURKMENISTAN
ANDREY GROZIN,
Head of the Institute of the CIS Countries’ Department of Central Asia and Kazakhstan Studies, Moscow
The Parliamentary elections in Turkmenistan should not be overestimated as their outcome was quite predictable.
Previously, the Turkmen Constitution had been amended, the Turkmen People’s Council was disbanded, the Parliament was granted new powers and its composition was enlarged. In the last years of Saparmurat Niyazov’s presidency, the Parliament came to play no role in the country’s politics.
Now, the increase in the Parliament’s role and even the possibility of bringing impeachment charges against the President are proclaimed at least on paper, but this cannot be implemented in practice in Turkmenistan.
The main goal of the election was to confirm President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s image. It is almost two years since Saparmurat Niyazov died and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov became the President. It is necessary to show that he has more democratic beliefs than his predecessor had and is going to reform Turkmenistan’s political system.
The President could not introduce the multi-party system, so he chose the softest scenario – holding the parliamentary elections. For the first time, the CIS observers as well as the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) experts could watch the elections, although the number of the latter was no more than 10 people. Holding the elections the President made it clear to the West that he intended to democratize the country.
There is no telling whether the West will understand Berdimuhamedov’s actions. At least, before the elections the U.S. Department of State said that the elections were unlikely to be democratic and fair. On the contrary, Europe’s reaction was positive. But those reactions are not the countries’ real stances. It’s just a good cop/bad cop tactic.
Here the USA is the bad cop and it wants to look like a fighter for democratic and humanitarian standards. Europe is the good cop and it needs the Turkmen gas.
It is another matter that over two years Europe has managed to receive only the Turkmen President’s vague promise to reserve 10 billion cubic meters of gas for Nabucco pipeline, which is scanty and there is no formal agreement about that. Europe would like to take part in modernizing the country’s energy system and in the deposits development.
The EU realizes that it significantly loses to Moscow that has good pipeline system here. In addition, Europe also starts losing to China that builds the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, though it does that slowly. The pipeline will unlikely to be built in 2009. But if China and Turkmenistan are not at variance, its construction will be completed within five years. Turkmenistan will pump gas through the pipeline without prejudice to other contracts, but gas may not be found for the third pipeline.
So, the frequent visits of the EU officials to Turkmenistan and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s visit to Austria and Germany make the EU leaders appreciate Turkmenistan’s efforts to democratize the regime. At the same time, the EU realizes that for the time being, Turkmenistan is far from being a really democratic state. The parliamentary elections are nothing but a facade put up to live up to the West’s expectations.
The Turkmen authorities say that two candidates tried to be elected to every parliamentary seat. But all the candidates belong to the ruling Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, which is a successor to the Communist Party. Therefore, the Turkmen Parliament is one-party, quite controllable and in contrast to the parliaments in the neighboring Central Asian countries, it is absolutely inefficient. The authorities say that the turnout was 98%, but, as a matter of fact, it was 30-40%, which the EU understands, but, unlike the USA, it cannot afford to speak about that openly.
Consequently, the parliamentary elections will not influence the Russian-Turkmen relations. They will change nothing because the Parliament makes no decisions in Turkmenistan.
December 19, 2008
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