Turkmenistan votes for leader

Turkmenistan votes on Sunday in a one-sided election certain to extend the rule of President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov over a Central Asian country holding 4 percent of global gas reserves. Turkmenistan votes on Sunday in a one-sided election certain to extend the rule of President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov over a Central Asian country holding 4 percent of global gas reserves. Berdymukhamedov, a 54-year-old qualified dentist, is also prime minister, commander of the armed forces and chairman of the only political party in Turkmenistan. His word is final in the former Soviet republic, which borders Iran and Afghanistan. Few citizens recognise anyone on the ballot paper other than the president, whose portrait - smiling and dressed in business suit and tie - can be found in parks, streets, offices and hotel lobbies across the desert nation of 5.5 million people. Icy roads and frosts greeted the first trickle of voters who made their way to polling stations in Ashgabat, the country's showpiece capital. Piped music filled the air along the city's fountain-lined avenues as the sun came up. Berdymukhamedov's seven token challengers, including government ministers and the director of a state-run textile factory, have lauded the president in the run-up to the vote. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has not sent observers, after deciding during a pre-vote mission to the country in December that its presence would not "add value" given limited freedoms and lack of political competition. Shary, a 20-year-old taxi driver who gave only his first name, said he did not need to visit a polling station because election officials would bring a ballot box to his home. "They will come with a ballot box and I will vote, although nothing depends on me," he said. Russian television channels, picked up by satellite dishes that crowd the roofs of Soviet-era apartment blocks in Ashgabat and other cities, are a rare connection with the outside world in a country where Facebook and YouTube are blocked. After winning the last presidential election in February 2007, with 89 percent of the vote, Berdymukhamedov began gradually to dismantle the often bizarre cult of personality around Saparmurat Niyazov, the country's first post-Soviet leader, who died of a heart attack. He has restored the traditional names of the months, which had been altered by Niyazov to honour national symbols. For several years, January had shared Niyazov's adopted name of Turkmenbashi - Head of All Turkmen. (World Bulletin)