Turkmenistan to let OSCE poll monitors watch vote

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

ASHGABAT, Jan 22 (Reuters) Turkmenistan has invited Europe's main democracy and human rights group, the OSCE, to monitor a presidential election next month -- a first for the secretive country which has never held an election judged free.

The February 11 vote for a successor to late President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov, who ruled with an iron fist for 21 years until his death a month ago, will be the first with more than one name on the ballot paper.

Acting President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is widely expected to win. He is running against five lightweight candidates, all members of the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, the gas-rich Central Asian state's sole political party.

''An agreement has been reached for the OSCE and a series of other authoritative international organisations to send delegations of observers to the upcoming presidential elections,'' state television said on Saturday.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said it did not have time to organise a standard election observation mission and would instead send a team of experts to monitor the vote.

It said in a report on its website (www.osce.org) that it had concerns about the pluralistic nature of the campaign and the steps taken so far were ''no guarantee for a competitive election''.

A Soviet-style meeting of the top legislative body, the Halk Maslakhaty (People's Assembly), saw village elders and local officials nominate the six candidates last month while the exiled opposition could not register its own candidate.

Niyazov, officially called Turkmenbashi (Leader of all Turkmen) the Great, ruled Turkmenistan in Soviet days and, after independence, further centralised power as he built up a personality cult around himself.

He won his last, uncontested, election victory in 1994 with 99.99 per cent of the vote.

Since his sudden death from heart failure, Berdymukhamedov and the interim government have pledged continuity with Niyazov's policies and left intact the numerous golden statues and enormous portraits that dot the capital city.

But, in a sign of a possible easing of Niyazov's more hardline measures, Berymukhamedov and the other candidates have pledged to reverse cuts in school and university education and pensions and to liberalise currency convertibility.

The favourite has also pledged to lift curbs on the Internet, which was inaccessible to the vast majority of citizens under Niyazov and tightly controlled for the select group granted access.

REUTERS BDP KP1331

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