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Almaty (Kazakhstan) (AFP) – After a fast-tracked rise to the highest of his father’s secretive authorities, Serdar Berdymukhamedov has posted a commanding victory in a presidential election marking the beginning of a dynasty in authoritarian Turkmenistan.
In a historic announcement in February, chief Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, 64, revealed plans to step again from the presidency and permit “younger leaders” to control.
The plan adopted years of hypothesis that he needed to ease son Serdar Berdymukhamedov, now 40, into the saddle of one of many world’s most closed-off regimes.
The energy-rich Central Asian nation on the Caspian Sea has no free media, honours its authoritarian leaders with ostentatious gold statues and has not admitted any coronavirus instances for the reason that outbreak of the pandemic.
The youthful Berdymukhamedov burst into public view as a lawmaker in 2016.
His publicity in fawning state media grew quickly as he rose to turn out to be the nation’s second strongest official.
Final yr Serdar Berdymukhamedov boosted his worldwide profile with a four-day go to to Russia and by holding talks within the capital Ashgabat with Wang Yi, the international minister of Turkmenistan’s high commerce associate China.
However the youthful man’s stony-faced appearances on nationwide tv provide few clues as as to if his imaginative and prescient for the nation differs from that of the impoverished desert nation’s “protector”.
A stint in Moscow
Serdar Berdymukhamedov was born in Ashgabat in 1981, and is the one son of three youngsters born to Berdymukhamedov and his spouse Ogulgerek.
Through the reign of Turkmenistan’s first president Saparmurat Niyazov, he graduated as an engineer from a state agrarian college that bore Niyazov’s identify.
He then headed a division overseeing the manufacturing of “non-alcoholic beer and wine” at a state affiliation, in accordance with his official biography.
However one-time dentist Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s elevation from well being minister to chief following Niyazov’s sudden dying in 2006 additionally signalled a change in fortunes for his son.
From 2008 to 2011 Serdar Berdymukhamedov studied worldwide relations in Moscow, working in parallel as an advisor at certainly one of Turkmenistan’s most necessary embassies.
A stint in Geneva with Turkmenistan’s mission to the United Nations workplace adopted, as did jobs on the international workplace and the presidential administration that weren’t made public on the time.
Protection of his work in authorities newspapers started to develop when he was reported as profitable a parliamentary by-election in his native Akhal province — the standard residence of Turkmenistan’s elite — in late 2016.
‘Honoured canine breeder’
The final two years have seen Berdymukhamedov transfer between posts at dizzying velocity, turning into deputy international minister, Akhal’s provincial governor and business minister previous to a triple promotion in February 2021 that confirmed his standing as second-in-command.
The profession enhance got here on the anniversary of his father’s first electoral victory and noticed him turn out to be vice premier within the cupboard, safety council seat-holder and auditor-general .
Berdymukhamedov junior’s victory margin of 73 p.c was notably extra modest than his father’s first election win with 89 p.c in 2007 and subsequent victories in 2012 and 2017 with 97 and 98 p.c, respectively.
Common watchers of Turkmenistan predict that the older man will nonetheless be holding the reins, after pledging to stay in politics as chief of the senate.
One factor that appears unlikely to alter beneath his son is the nation’s avowedly impartial international coverage, which Berdymukhamedov junior pledged to retain when responding to a journalist’s query about international affairs on election day.
The youthful Berdymukhamedov is properly adorned for his years.
In 2017, he acquired a state medal named in honour of his grandfather, Malikguly Berdymukhamedov, and was given an award for his “love of unbiased Turkmenistan” in 2019.
Final yr he was granted the title of “honoured canine breeder” — a reference to a task he has as head of an affiliation selling the welfare of the alabai shepherd canine — one other revered nationwide animal.
As of final yr he additionally heads an analogous affiliation supporting the Akhal-Teke horse breed which is famed for its shiny coat and is a robust image in state propaganda.
The function had beforehand been occupied by his Berdymukhamedov senior, a horse-mad eager equestrian.
Serdar Berdymukhamedov is married with 4 youngsters.
One in every of his youngsters is Kerimguly Berdymukhamedov, a guitar-playing teenager who’s frequently proven on state tv composing songs and taking part in sports activities together with his grandfather.
© 2022 AFP
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