Voters in reclusive Turkmenistan elect a parliament Sunday in balloting heralded by authorities in the natural gas-rich nation as a key step toward democratic standards but dismissed by critics as a sham.
The election comes two years after the death of idiosyncratic dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, which kindled hopes here and in the West that the Central Asian country would gradually roll back its oppressive political regime and introduce greater freedoms.
Niyazov's successor, President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, has revoked some of his more draconian decrees and vowed to pursue political reform. But most of the parliamentary candidates are from the only permitted political party, and exiled opposition activists say the president has failed to live up to his promises.
"Beyond all the pompous declarations, there will be no real change," Tadzhigul Begmedova, director of the Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, said by telephone from Varna, Bulgaria. "The hopes many people had that a new president would open up Turkmen society have been shattered."
On the surface, Turkmenistan's political landscape is changing. In September, the rubber-stamp People's Council _ a 2,507-member assembly of presidential appointees, town elders and others _ voted to abolish itself and cede most of its powers to an expanded parliament.
But out of the 288 candidates running for the 125 seats Sunday, more than half are members of the pro-presidential Democratic Party of Turkmenistan _ a political force created out of the ashes of the Soviet-era Turkmen Communist Party.
Non-party candidates have been drawn from state-controlled women's and veterans' organizations, trade unions and a youth group.
The only non-party candidate in the capital, Ashgabat, avidly supports Berdymukhamedov _ undermining official claims the polls will offer a wide choice.
"I will devote all my strengths to the honest and righteous support of our esteemed president's domestic and foreign policy," the candidate, regional bureaucrat Resulberdy Mammedov, said in a campaign statement.
Niyazov isolated Turkmenistan from the international community and forged a pervasive personality cult. He called himself Turkmenbashi, or father of all Turkmens, renamed months after himself and his mother, and made his self-penned spiritual tome mandatory reading for students and state employees.
With Berdymukhamedov decreasing the country's isolation, government opponents claim the election is aimed to appease Western countries that are eager to win access to its vast natural-gas reserves but wary of its record on democracy and human rights. The U.S. and European Union are seeking to lessen Russia's control over exports of Turkmen gas.
"This whole spectacle has been arranged for the international community, to show that Turkmenistan is following the path of democratization," said Begmedova.
While officials have extolled the vote as an exercise in democracy, there has been little campaigning and little coverage on state-run television, in contrast with the February 2007 presidential election that confirmed Berdymukhamedov's role as head of state.
"There are very few billboards around the city. With just four days to go before the election, I still don't know who I'm supposed to vote for," said Maral, 45, an Ashgabat resident who declined to give her surname for fear of official intimidation.
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Associated Press Writer Peter Leonard contributed to this report from Almaty, Kazakhstan.
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