Turkmenistan: One Party Good, Two Parties Better

Turkmenistan, the classic one-party state, is about to get more two political groups. But it isn’t democracy just yet. Critics say the haste with which President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov is pushing ahead with plans for a multi-party system shows that the reform is not genuine.

At an April 15 meeting of a “council of elders” in Dashoguz in northern Turkmenistan, the president instructed parliament to come up with a law providing for more than one political party. The time had come for a gradual move towards multi-party politics, he said.

Since Turkmenistan became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, it has had just one political force, the Democratic Party, which was created out the former Communist Party. Although it is the president, not the party, that wields power in Turkmenistan, all top officials have to be card-carrying members.

Other parties and movements that existed in the early 1990s closed down long ago and now operate in the diaspora. 

Berdymuhammedov first floated the idea of having more than one party in February, when he suggested opposition groups might even be allowed.

There was no talk of that in his latest speech, however. Instead, he gave explicit backing to one new group called the Farmers’ Party, which he indicated met the basic requirements of regime loyalty.

He also set out what the party would be expected to do – explain and implement state agricultural policies.

A lawyer in the capital Ashgabat asked why a new party was being unveiled when the necessary legislation had not yet gone through.

“That’s fundamentally wrong,” he said. “Although there is a constitutional provision for forming a party, there is no proper mechanism for doing so. They should have passed the law first, and only then proposed this initiative.”

He added, “Only a puppet party can be created in a rush and with no preparation.” 

Annadurdy Khajiev, a Turkmen dissident based in Bulgaria, agrees with this view.

“It’s a ludicrous situation,” he said. “The public is still unaware how politics is to be regulated, under what law, yet the head of state is already setting out the criteria for the Farmers’ Party.”

Khajiev also questions why the new party has to pursue state policies rather than developing its own.

An political observer in Lebap province in the east of Turkmenistan predicts that the Farmers’ Party will be managed into existence under the watchful supervision of Berdymuhammedov loyalists.

“Every farmer who ever received an award or prize from the authorities will be herded into it,” he said. “A party made up of such people will always follow the president’s line.”

An analyst in the northern Dashoguz province doubts that the average farmer will be interested in an organisation that has already had its agenda set for it.

If anyone took the president at his word and actually tried to set up an independent, grassroots party, analysts agree it would not last long.

“Berdymuhammedov would suffocate it at birth,” said the analyst in Dashoguz. “Parties like that are not wanted, and it’s 100 per cent certaint they would get registration.”

Four months ago, Sazak Durdymuratov, a well-known teacher and activist from Baharden in the Ahal region, who was tortured in detention when Berdymuhammedov’s predecessor Saparmurat Niazov was in power, wrote to the local authorities asking for permission to found a party.

The authorities have so far ignored his request. 

Human rights activists say multiple parties could only emerge if Turkmenistan became much more liberal.

“It’s impossible to create a multiparty system in a country with no civil society,” said Vyacheslav Mamedov, leader of the Turkmen Civil Democratic Union, based in The Netherlands.

“The first thing they’d need to do is bring political refugees back to Turkmenistan, the active members of society who are now scattered across the globe.”

Some analysts like Tajigul Begmedova, leader of the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation in Bulgaria, argue that Berdymuhammedov’s multiparty project is primarily for external consumption – a sop to the international community, which is keen to see democratic reforms in Turkmenistan.

A TV journalist in Ashgabat agrees, saying, “Berdymuhammedov faces the dilemma of how to meet the demands made by the international community, or see his reformist image… swept away entirely.”

An official at the Turkmen parliament defended the president’s actions, saying “Don’t you see we’re trying to improve things? The fact that the president found the courage to break down old stereotypes shows he is determined to do it”.

This article was produced as part of IWPR’s News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.