The People’s Council of Turkmenistan known as a ‘Khalk Maslahaty’, once more took the decision, which clearly made the Presidential Election out of the question in the near future.

This result came out from an annual meeting of Khalk Maslahaty held in Ashghabat on October 24-25, in which more than 2507 selected “by Officials” delegates participated.

The meeting was previously dedicated to discussing 9 issues including, election draft of 3 Khalk Maslahaty at village, Regional and National Levels. The Law on conducting presidential elections also was among them.

During 2 days of meeting all drafts including some additions were quickly passed without objection by the thousands of delegates except the draft on presidential elections.

According to western analysts some of the resolutions were symbolic meant only to avoid criticism by the west about undemocratic processes and result of such meetings. Such tricky resolutions include banning the movement of nuclear weapons and devices, and weapons of mass destruction through the land and airspace of Turkmenistan. According to analysts, while there are so many discussions on WMD in Iran and North Korea this is nothing more than sending unclear signal to the west.

The draft on the presidential election was originally at they bottom of the agenda but was brought up to the top at the opening session on 24th October.

‘We solved this problem on 28 December 1999 when we elected the Great Leader “Saparmyrat Niyazov” as our President for life’, said Myrat Garreyv head of the National Election Commission aired live on state channels. ‘I propose that point 9, the law on the election of the President in Turkmenistan be removed from the agenda, because we call him great Father, and how can we change our father?’

On insistence of the second speaker at the Khalk Maslahaty Dr. Onjuk Musayev the Secretary General of Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, President Niyazov agreed to put this section of the draft to the council’s vote. As an expected proposition passed 2606-1, with the one vote against belonging to the president Niyazov himself.

With this popular vote of officially selected people, the future of the country and its 6 million citizens has been decided for another uncertain term without political change or even hope for general election in the country.

Interestingly ‘in the words of some analysts’ for this stage drama no official criticism has been recorded by the international community.

This raises many questions. But the most important is, in a period when western countries, criticize simple cases of election frauds in their neighbors, how can Niyazov,s administration continue to rule the country so autocratically?
An expert at the Center for Eurasian Studies (ASAM) in Turkey Dr. Mehmet Seyfettin Erol says, ‘the recent political turnover in Central Asia specially after Andijan events in Uzbekistan, lots of things have changed. US and other western countries understand that pressure on issues like human rights or election is not useful any more, because in such cases Central Asian autocrats have a second alternative in China and Russia who have nothing to say about these issues’.

According to Dr. Erol, after September 11, Washington was too aggressive in central Asia, from the Central Asian rulers’ point of view, US was threatening their power. But in reality the US was trying to put forward the democratic people’s movements, and propel them into power and then hopefully these new govts would be pro-US. By doing so Washington underestimated whether people were ready for such change. Is there any demand for imported democracy? Whether grass roots preparation been made or not? In the most recent cases, recently the example of Kyrgyzistan made it clear that, US lost this part of game’.

After all those changes the Turkmen administration also understands, that US is no more important figure in Central Asia then it was in 2001-2. Even so the Turkmen President doesn’t like to ignore US completely. Organizing such symbolic voting at the Khalk Maslahaty gives a quasi-legal base for his administration to say ‘look, its people who don’t want from me to leave the office’. As well as having second alternative ‘China and Russia’ Turkmenistan also manages to shut-up many of the western countries by engaging their major companies who have important role in the politics of their own countries. These business interests force many countries to exclude the situation in Turkmenistan from their Foreign Policies.

However, being agreeing on issues like WMD, when it’s at the top of the world’s agenda Niyazov also doesn’t miss the chance to play political tricks toward the world. But if we take into account overall foreign policy of Turkmenistan it is easy to see that a partnership with China and Russia is unavoidable. According to analysts a part from it’s geographical location there are other reasons for relationship with China and Russia. The most important is that those superpowers never raise the issue of Human Rights and democratic values in Turkmenistan as west does.

Does this mean the hope for democracy has been lost in Central Asia including Turkmenistan? According to experts in the short term ‘yes’, because countries like US have also started to use lighter language about issues in Central Asia and influence of Russia and China keep increasing.

Now there is only one thing left for the west to do: wait and see how long the China-Russian partnership, on the platform of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, will continue? The initial aim of Shanghai Cooperation Organization was– to oust America from Central Asia. Some analysts believe that, in order to make the Organization a world power, its two major actors, China and Russia, are trying to convince Pakistan, India and possibly Iran to become members. If this aim is ever translated into reality, it will not only harm western interest in the largest part of Asia, but will also shift the balance of economic and military power away from the west.

But in common sense, the expansion of this Organization – which may even have the special sympathy of Turkey – may not be that easy. From the beginning, China has pitted Pakistan against Russia by wishing to make India a member. It raises another question as well; whether these two major actors of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have already started fighting over their interests?.

What will the outcome or duration of this struggle be, it continues to give grounds for leaders like Niyazov to rule the country without considering his international obligations or the interests of his citizens.

'The Journal of Turkish Weekly"