Turkmenistan will hang an early presidential election on March 12, a Central Election Fee legitimate informed Reuters on Saturday, after President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov hinted he deliberate to surrender.
Berdymukhamedov, 64, has run the gas-rich Central Asian country since 2006 with sweeping powers and no efficient opposition. His 40-year-old son Serdar, a deputy high minister, is noticed as a most probably successor.
Berdymukhamedov, whose present time period used to be set to finish in 2024, may be the high minister of the previous Soviet republic and the speaker of the higher space of parliament. In a speech to the higher space past due on Friday, Berdymukhamedov mentioned he had made “a tricky resolution” and made up our minds that it used to be time to present approach to “younger leaders” within the operating of the state.
A sequence of promotions given to his son Serdar — who has served as a diplomat, member of parliament, minister and a provincial governor — has triggered hypothesis that the president used to be grooming him as a successor.
Referred to as partial to native Alabai canine and Akhal-Teke horses to which he has devoted state vacations and erected monuments, Berdymukhamedov is recurrently known as Arkadag (Protector) by way of the media within the former Soviet republic which borders Afghanistan and exports gasoline to China and Russia.
