The death of a dictator in Turkmenistan

Some recent news proving worthy of discussion...............the death of longtime authoritarian leader of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, aged 66, whose death was announced Thursday 21st Dec after he had an apparent heart attack overnight. He left no clear successor.

Thus ends the life of idiosyncratic and iron-fisted dictator, who was so full of himself its quite unbelievable. As well as naming numerous towns, schools and even months and days of the week after himself, he then proceeded to erect numrous statues of himself (and his mother) including a gold-plated statue atop Aşgabat's largest building, that rotates 360 degrees every 24 hours so as to always face the sun and shine light onto the capital city. A bizzare personality cult indeed!

He leaves behind him a society that is poor, repressed and has never known democracy. Niyazov became absolute leader after Turkmenistan became independent with the 1991 Soviet collapse. The desert nation of 5 million lies north of Afghanistan and Iran. They have elections but only with one party standing (and this does not seem threatened even now with new elections planned). Niyazov won Turkmenistan's last presidential election in 1992 with a reported 95.5 percent of the vote. He was named president for life in 1999.

But what is really at stake is the fact that Turkmenistan has the second largest reserves of natural gas and petroleum in the gas-rich former Soviet Union, generating high revenue for the state. Niyazov's sudden death could lead to a contest between Russia and the West over the former Soviet republic's enormous reserves, with the Kremlin seeking to influence who will be president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a condolence message that "strengthening our partnership is in the true interests of the peoples of Russia and Turkmenistan."

U.S. President George W. Bush said the U.S. hopes "to expand our relations with Turkmenistan."

Very nicely coded for dominance of some kind!

Within Turkmenistan there are signs of power-jockeying, which emerged only hours after Niyazov's death was announced. Although the Constitution stipulates that the Parliament speaker become acting president, the deputy prime minister was given the job and later dismissed the speaker. Also with Niyazov gone, exiled opposition leaders are clamoring to return.

So the question is............who will be the next leader and whose puppet will he be? Or will some big personality emerge that doesn't care squat about the West or Russia and forges a third way for Turkmenistan? And in all this, does anyone care about the citizens of Turkmenistan and the fact that they have absolutely no freedoms and very low standards of living? Sadly power and influence seems to comee way before caring for humanity.