Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was sworn in Wednesday as Turkmenistan’s president immediately after he was declared the election winner.
Berdymukhammedov was inaugurated in a colorful ceremony in the People’s Council, the central Asian state’s highest legislative body, in Ashgabat, after Murad Karryev, head of the central electoral commission, announced he’d won 89.2 percent of votes cast. Official data showed 98.7 percent of the electorate voted in the Feb. 11 poll.
The former dentist, born in 1957, vowed to “follow the path” set by “the first president, Saparmurat Turkmenbashi,” Berdymukhammedov said in remarks rebroadcast in Russia from Turkmen television. He was referring to President-for- life Saparmurat Niyazov, who died in December.
Berdymukhammedov, who had been acting president since December, said he’d extend education to 10 years from nine, improve health care and allow greater Internet access. He also vowed to keep gas supplies flowing to foreign customers.
Niyazov, an absolute ruler first as Communist Party boss from 1985, and then as president after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, had cut the final year from the school curriculum and closed most of the country’s hospitals, replacing medical staff with untrained army conscripts.
Berdymukhammedov, who was Niyazov’s personal dentist, became health minister in 1997 and then deputy prime minister in 2001. Khudaiberdy Orazov, a former central bank head turned opposition leader who knows the new president personally, says he’s an uncharismatic man.
“He’s gray, he always kept quiet, he’s very limited,” Orazov said from Sweden, where he lives in exile.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Berdymukhammedov to congratulate him on his victory, his press service said, and said he hoped the election would bring a “new impulse” to Russian-Turkmen ties. Russia buys Turkmen gas relatively cheaply, freeing up Russian gas for export at higher prices on the European market.
