Turkmen Leader Tries Common Touch

Turkmenistan’s president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov has taken to travelling round the country to see how people really live. Local commentators doubt the tactic will give the president an accurate picture, as local officials rush in to fix things up the moment they get wind of what are supposed to be surprise visits.

On February 23, for example, the president turned up in the village of Babadurmaz in the Ahal region of south-central Turkmenistan. He looked at social provisions and asked questions about the standard of living there. Twelve days earlier he had travelled by plane to pay surprise visits to the Mary and Balkan regions.

Addressing government ministers on February 25, he complained that rural settlements lacked “the basics, including decent roads”.

“I have a question – what are the heads and deputy heads of [local] administrations, and the numerous managers of the offices and departments in the local administrations actually doing?" he asked.

Berdymuhammedov’s predecessor as president, Saparmurat Niazov, who died in 2006, also professed a desire to find out how ordinary people lived. He once told reporters that he wore a false beard to visit local markets incognito, so that his interior minister once failed to recognise him.

The current president has adopted a different tactic, making forays that are supposed to take place before local government officials get advance warning of them.

According to a media-watcher in the northern Dashoguz region, the president must realise his subordinates are fooling him with their descriptions of universal prosperity when the reality is a long way off that”.

But if the president is genuine about wanting to see life as it really is, he is being fooled once again.

When he visited Balkan region in western Turkmenistan recently, a local observer reported that "officials hastily began dealing with obvious problems, tidying up the area, and replacing faded flags on the roofs of buildings".

The president was accompanied by the provincial governor, so it was fairly obvious news of the trip was going to leak out.

"How could it be that the governor and the president’s aides and advisors would not make it known that he was coming, and the reasons why?” the commentator said.

The same thing happened when Berdymuhammedov arrived in Mary region in the southeast. The element of surprise was lost when he drove in from the airport and the roads were lined with local people corralled into greeting him.

An official in the presidential administration laughed at the suggestion secrecy was being maintained, and said everything was as orchestrated as before, the only concession to the “surprise effect” being the absence of the song and dance performances that are usually staged during visits.

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