| Parliament name (generic / translated) |
Mejlis / Assembly |
| Structure of parliament |
Unicameral |
| BACKGROUND |
| Dates of election / renewal (from/to) |
14 December 2008 |
| Purpose of elections |
Elections were held for all seats in the Assembly, one year before they were constitutionally due. |
On 12 September 2008, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov announced that the elections to the Assembly would be held on 14 December 2008. They were constitutionally due by December 2009.
In the previous elections held in December 2004 and January 2005, all candidates were reportedly "hand-picked" and personally approved by the then President Saparmurat Niyazov. The country's only legal party, the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan (DPT), took all the 50 seats at stake.
In February 2007, former deputy prime minister Berdimuhamedov (DPT) was elected President, succeeding Mr. Niyazov who had passed away in December 2006 after serving for 16 years. Mr. Berdimuhamedov was unanimously elected Chairman of the People's Council (Khalk Maslahaty), the 'supreme representative body of popular power' comprising over 2,000 top officials and elders.
The new President pledged to bring about a "new revival" in the country. He introduced a series of reforms including constitutional amendments, adopted by the People's Council on 26 September 2008, which then unanimously voted to dissolve itself and transfer its powers to the President and the Assembly.
The constitutional amendments allow individuals nominated from legally registered political parties and political movements, as well as "public associations" and assemblies of voters, to run for elections. In practice, the nomination process reportedly remains closely controlled by the government. The amendments also raised the statutory number of members of the Assembly to 125. The Assembly is once again vested with the power to amend and adopt the Constitution - which had been removed in 2003 - and now has the power to call referenda and presidential and parliamentary elections, ratify international treaties and address issues of border delimitation.
No new parties had been formed before 14 November 2008, the deadline for nominations. Consequently, only the members of the DPT and other entities under the National Revival Movement were eligible. As was the case in the 2007 presidential elections, the Republican Party of Turkmenistan, the exiled opposition party, was not allowed to field any candidates. Also barred from the elections was Mr. Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev, who had been incarcerated in a psychiatric clinic between 2004 and 2006 after requesting permission to hold a political rally.
287 candidates contested the 2008 elections. Apart from small meetings held by the DPT, no visible election campaigns were reported. In late October, the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER) announced that Turkmen citizens living abroad would be allowed to vote in the elections.
On 14 December 2008, 93.87 per cent of the 2.7 million registered voters turned out at the polls.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) chose not to send a full-fledged observer mission, arguing that the country's political context did not provide for genuine competition. OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sent five election experts but did not make an official assessment of the election day proceedings. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) declared that the elections were "competitive and transparent".
On 22 December 2008, a list of 123 elected candidates was published. It did not contain their party affiliation. Elected candidates included senior officials of the DPT, tax officials, teachers and other civil servants.
On 28 December 2008, a run-off election was held in one constituency where no candidate had secured the required majority. A by-election took place on 8 February 2009 in another constituency to replace a candidate who had not taken up his seat for family reasons.
The newly elected Assembly held its first session on 9 January 2009 and re-elected Ms. Akja Tajiyewna Nurberdiyewa as its Speaker. |
| STATISTICS |
| Voter turnout |
| Round no 1 | 14 December 2008 |
Number of registered electors
Voters
Blank or invalid ballot papers
Valid votes |
2'763'993
2'594'658 (93.87%)
|
|
Notes
|
|
| Distribution of votes |
|
|
| Distribution of seats |
|
|
| Distribution of seats according to sex |
Men
Women
Percent of women |
104
21
16.80%
|
| Distribution of seats according to age |
|
|
|
| Distribution of seats according to profession |
|
|
| Comments |
| Source: Turkmenistan Embassy to Austria (16.03.2009) |
|
Compare data for parliamentary chambers in the Last elections module
