Turkmenistan’s Election Commission on Monday announced that authoritarian leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov had won his third term as president with almost 98% of the vote, AFP reported. The 59-year-old former dentist and health minister won a seven-year-term after beating eight candidates, whom observers consider token rivals.
The commission’s chief Gulmyrat Myradov did not specify how many votes rival candidates had secured during the elections held on Sunday. Speaking to reporters, Myradov said, “We would like to congratulate, with all our hearts, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on his electoral victory.”
He took over as president in 2006. “If I am elected, then our policies aimed at improving the welfare of the people will continue,” AFP quoted Berdymukhamedov as saying.
In 2016, the strongman amended the Constitution to remove the upper age limit criteria for candidates contesting the elections. He had also altered the rules to increase the presidential term from five years to seven years.
Observers consider the leader to be repressive and Sunday’s election as “weakly-contested”. The New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch had said that while the incumbent had taken a “few modest steps to reverse his predecessor’s damaging policies”, he had continued the “most serious abuses” under his reign.
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