GENERAL OVERVIEW

Azhdar KURTOV

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Azhdar Kurtov, President, Moscow Public Law Research Center (Moscow, Russia)

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Turkmenistan is a unique state not only in Central Asia, but also in the whole post-Soviet space. At the present stage of development, its uniqueness depends on two main factors. First, on its huge hydrocarbon reserves. In per capita terms, they are comparable to those of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. And second, on the political regime of personal power that has taken shape in the republic under President Saparmurat Niyazov and whose essential characteristics enable us to rank it among the regimes of the totalitarian type. None of the other post-Soviet regimes, which are various combinations of authoritarian government, have reached such a degree of absolute power and self-sufficient will of the head of state as one finds in Turkmenistan.

In our opinion, the main feature that aligns this regime with totalitarianism is not the poor development of private enterprise, the government’s constant interference in the business process, the one-party system with a single political organization (the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan) or the use of repression against any manifestations of disagreement with the president’s line. What is totalitarian here is, first and foremost, the ideological practice of imposing on society a single system of views formulated in Niyazov’s works, including his book Rukhnama (Book of the Soul). The Turkmen state system thereby seeks to establish total control over the life of society in general and of each individual in particular.

This is a special kind of ideology, a set of ideas substantiating and legitimizing the incumbent president’s right to………………

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