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Life After Death
// Turkmenistan Under Turkmenbashi's Successor
The first multiple-choice presidential elections in Turkmenistan's history as an independent country were supposed to answer the main question: is there life after death? Is there life in Turkmenistan after the death of the Father of All Turkmen, Saparmurat Niyazov? The question is not as speculative as "is there life on Mars?", but it is still provoking enormous – though not highly-publicized – interest both from the country's neighbors in the region and from world leaders, all of whom are frantically trying to learn how to pronounce the name of the new Turkmen president. The elections proved that there is, in fact, life after death in Turkmenistan. However, the elections did not come close to answering another question: but what kind of life? Or more precisely, what will happen now with Turkmenistan and its relations with the outside world?
The unfamiliar word "reform" is already being bandied about. No one doubts that the country is going to change. But no one has yet tried to predict the rate of the future reforms, their general direction, and how radical they will be and how far-reaching - as well as how painful, on which hangs the possibility of social upheavals.
It is clear that the new Turkmen president will not only have to clean out those Augean stables that President-for-life Niyazov left in the form of Ashgabat's glittering fa?ade of his palaces, fountains, and expensive hotels. The most serious test will be the so-called Turkmen neutrality that characterized Ashgabat's politics under Turkmenbashi. He has to be given his due: Saparmurat Niyazov managed to embody in life the idea of an energy superpower and "nationally colored," or "sovereign," Turkmen democracy without attracting any particular attention in the West – to the quiet envy of other "sovereign democracies" in the post-Soviet space. He forced George Bush and Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yushchenko to respect him. However, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov will probably not be able to continue his predecessor's foreign policy, for the simple reason that by definition his position within the country cannot approach the unflinching stance of the father of the nation, who enjoyed the unconditional support of the people and the palace circles. Thus the new leader, who will undoubtedly not want to be caliph for just an hour, will not survive without influential foreign friends. The deal could look like this: gas in exchange for political support that would ensure the regime's durability.
In all likelihood, the West will not pass up the chance to use the new Turkmenistan in an attempt to crowd in on Russia and the CIS. After all, even under Saparmurat Niyazov the country was seen as a crucial potential resource in Western Europe's quest to free itself from its dependence on Russian gas. The new Turkmen leader just needs to make a few symbolic gestures demonstrating his interest in the West instead of in nationally colored democracy, and poof! the job is done. Especially since more than one "reformed" regime in the East – from Pakistan to Libya – has taken that road. So the Turkmen won't even need to reinvent the wheel.
Sergei Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 12, 2007
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