Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, March 15 (AFP\/APP): The son of Turkmenistan’s autocrat leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov won a decisive victory in presidential elections, officials said Tuesday, paving the way to hereditary succession in one of the world’s most tightly-controlled countries.<\/p>\n
Serdar Berdymukhamedov, 40, won the ballot held on Saturday with 73 percent of the vote, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) said in a statement on its website.<\/p>\n
Nine candidates stood in the poll in the isolated country of six million people, but few doubted that Berdymukhamedov’s only son Serdar — who has pledged to continue his father’s course — would take over the country’s top job.<\/p>\n
Berdymukhamedov senior, who is now Turkmenistan’s outgoing president, chair of the cabinet and senate chief, has been the regime’s top decision-maker for the last 15 years.<\/p>\n
The strongman known as the gas-rich country’s “protector” has dominated public life since the country’s founding president Saparmurat Niyazov died in 2006 and tolerates no dissent.<\/p>\n
Last month Berdymukhamedov said he would step aside and allow “young leaders” to govern, triggering a snap vote.<\/p>\n
CEC officials took their time to announce the results of one of the world’s most predictable elections that saw Berdymukhamedov face off against relatively unknown civil servants and provincial officials.<\/p>\n
On Sunday the CEC’s chairman Gulmyrat Myradov told journalists who had attended a press-conference in expectation of hearing the results that the results were being delayed due to “the need for a thorough count”.<\/p>\n
In the end Berdymukhamedov junior’s victory margin proved far lower than the 98 and 97 percent routs posted by his 64-year-old father in the hermit state’s last two elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, March 15 (AFP\/APP): The son of Turkmenistan’s autocrat leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov won a decisive victory in presidential elections, officials said Tuesday, paving the way to hereditary succession in one of the world’s most tightly-controlled countries. Serdar Berdymukhamedov, 40, won the ballot held on […]<\/p>\n
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