Presidency of Saparmurad Niyazov (“Turkmenbashi”)

The republic declared independence on October 27, 1991, and adopted the name Turkmenistan. In the early years of independence, a corrupt regime led by the dictatorial rule of Saparmurad Niyazov (also called Turkmenbashi, “leader of the Turkmen”) failed to improve the quality of life for the population, despite the interest of foreign investors in Turkmenistan’s natural gas resources. During the course of Niyazov’s rule, his primary interest proved to be propagating an elaborate personality cult. In addition to declaring himself president for life, Niyazov pursued a number of extravagant projects to this end. Atop a monument called the Neutrality Arch, a gold statue in his likeness—one of the many such statues and portraits scattered throughout the country—was designed to rotate to continuously face the Sun. He called for a “Golden Age Lake” to be constructed in the desert at a cost of more than $6 billion, and his semiautobiographical Rukhnama (“The Book of the Soul”) was established as required reading in all of Turkmenistan’s schools, even forming a part of driver’s exams. He renamed days of the week, months of the year, a crater on the Moon, a breed of horse, a canal, a city, and a wide range of ideas and places after himself and members of his family. A large proportion of state money—at the beginning of the 21st century, estimated at more than half of the country’s gross domestic product—was funneled off to a special presidential fund; much of this revenue was to subsidize special construction projects emphasizing the president’s prestige. This systematic diversion of revenue, as well as various “reforms,” resulted in a crippling decline in education and health care services.

In late 2006, after more than two decades of rule, Niyazov died suddenly of heart failure. Fears that the absence of a designated successor would threaten the country’s stability were not immediately realized, though the naming of former minister of health Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov as acting president—a departure from the dictates of the country’s constitution—was greeted with some surprise. The country’s first (at least nominally) contested elections were held in February of the following year, and, amid widespread criticism that they were marred by fraud, Berdymukhammedov was declared the winner and was formally inaugurated as Turkmenistan’s president.

Presidency of Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov

Early in his presidency, Berdymukhammedov took steps toward dismantling the vestiges of Niyazov’s personality cult and reversing some of his controversial orders. Adjustments included ending bans such as those on ballet and opera, reversing Niyazov’s decree renaming the days of the week and months of the year after himself and members of his family, and ordering that the Neutrality Arch, with its large gold effigy, be moved from the capital’s centre to its southern reaches. But Berdymukhammedov soon replaced Niyazov’s personality cult with one of his own. Instead of renaming months after himself and his relatives, he renamed locations and institutions. Replacing Niyazov’s Rukhnama, students began reading Berdymukhammedov’s Turkmennama (“Story of the Turkmens”). In 2015 a golden statute of Berdymukhammedov was unveiled in central Ashgabat.

Berdymukhammedov was elected to a second five-year term as president in February 2012, although the ballot was generally regarded as fraudulent. In December Turkmenistan held a parliamentary election that was billed as the first to feature multiple political parties. In reality, the political process remained under the government’s tight control. Only parties with official recognition participated in the election, and individual candidates were carefully screened to ensure their loyalty to Berdymukhammedov.

In late 2015 work began on a pipeline that would allow Turkmenistan to export its extensive natural gas resources to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The so-called Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline was expected to stretch about 1,125 miles (1,800 km) and to be operational by the end of 2019, though financial troubles in Turkmenistan left the pipeline construction far behind schedule. By 2022 only a section of the pipeline stretching from Turkmenistan into western Afghanistan had been completed.

In February 2016 a commission headed by Berdymukhammedov drafted amendments to the constitution that would increase the length of a presidential term from five to seven years and remove the upper age limit on the president, which had been set at 70. Observers generally saw the amendments, which went into effect just months before the presidential election scheduled for February 2017, as further evidence that Berdymukhammedov intended to hold the presidency for life. As expected, Berdymukhammedov won a seven-year term in 2017 with 98 percent of the vote.

After an unexpected absence from public in 2019, however, rumours began swirling about the state of Berdymukhammedov’s health. His son, Serdar, began taking on a number of public positions, and in 2021 he was appointed to the post of deputy prime minister. That same year an upper chamber was created for the legislature; Gurbanguly became its chair, which would allow him to retain a postpresidential political role. In February 2022 Gurbanguly announced that an early presidential election would be held in March and that he would not be running. Serdar’s candidacy was announced days later. He won the election with more than 70 percent of the vote and took over as president a week later.