The Atlantic – Joshua Foust: Inside Turkmenistan’s Surreal Presidential Election
Source: The Atlantic, 01/07/2012
ASP Fellow Joshua Foust writes:
Inexplicably, Berdimuhamedov seems determined to proceed with the trappings of a normal election no one will acknowledge as such. At this point, the only question is what percentage of the vote he will choose to accept. Other Central Asian dictators have not shied away from impossible margins, such as Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan (95 percent) and Islom Karimov in Uzbekistan ( 88 percent). Wll Berdimuhamedov meet or beat his 89 percent from 2007? Will he go higher, to lend the appearance of inevitability to his oppressive regime? Or will he go lower, to try to create the false sense of political dynamism?
It is the ambiguity over such bizarre questions—literally how much effort will a tyrant go to create the illusion of choice for his renewal of power—that makes studying Central Asia so surreal and fascinating. The fate of Turkemenistan has global implications. Its geography, nestled between the Caspian Sea, Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia and Kazakhstan to the north, give it strategic importance, even if its official neutrality limits what actually happens politically.
This article is available online.
