ASHGABAT: Citizens of Turkmenistan went to the polls on Sunday for a presidential vote expected to further tighten incumbent strongman Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s hold over the gas-rich Central Asian country.
Voting in the country of over five million people began at 0700 local time (0200 GMT) and will continue until polling stations close at 1900 local time (1400 GMT), the central electoral commission confirmed.
Berdymukhamedov, 59, faces eight other candidates including subordinate regional officials, the director of a government-owned oil refinery and a representative of the Central Asian country’s state agribusiness complex.
But these other men are viewed as token opponents for the former dentist and health minister who rose to power suddenly following the shock death of predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov in 2006.
“Out of the nine I only know and understand the current president,” Aiperi Tashliyeva, a 48-year-old housewife living in the capital Ashgabat, told AFP.
“I do not know on what merits or for what reasons the others became candidates. Therefore, I will vote for Berdymukhamedov,” she said.
Recent footage from state television saw Berdymukhamedov in relaxed form during a low key pre-election campaign.
One of his public appearances showed him decked in casual attire as he impressed factory workers by strumming along on the guitar to a song state media claims he wrote himself.
The grand pledge at the centre of his campaign is to “ensure the prosperity of independent, neutral Turkmenistan in the third millennium”.
