Turkmenistan under Niyazov: personalist rule and gas rents (1991–2006)

Background

Saparmurat Niyazov became first secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic in 1985 and remained in charge when Turkmenistan became independent in 1991. Annette Bohr notes that he curtailed dissent easily even during perestroika: the main opposition movement, Agzybirlik, could not gather the members required for registration, and opposition activists were harassed into exile. Turkmenistan has some of the world's largest natural-gas reserves and a small population, which gave the new state an unusual fiscal base.

How it was governed

• A personalist presidency. Niyazov took the title Turkmenbashi ("father of the Turkmen") and was president for life. Power was concentrated in the presidency; parliament and the People's Council (Halk Maslahaty), a large assembly of officials and appointees, ratified his decisions.
• Constant purges. Ministers and regional governors were rotated and dismissed frequently, often followed by prison sentences, which prevented rival power bases from forming.
• Personality cult. Niyazov's portraits and golden statues filled public space; his book, the Ruhnama (2001), became central to school curricula, and civil servants had to pass exams on it.
• Doctrine of permanent neutrality in foreign policy, which kept the country out of alliances and limited external scrutiny.
• No pluralism. There were no legal opposition parties, independent media or civil society; foreign journalists and human rights monitors were largely refused entry.

Economy

The economy remained state-led: the state controlled gas, oil, cotton and grain, set prices and allocated foreign currency. From 1993 citizens received gas, electricity, water and salt free of charge within limits, and flour, housing and petrol were cheap. Global Witness reported in 2006 that most gas revenue was held in off-budget foreign-currency funds created by presidential decree and under the president's personal control, chiefly the Foreign Exchange Reserve Fund, with accounts at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt; its sources estimated that more than $3 billion under Niyazov's control was held abroad and that about 75% of state spending took place off-budget. Human Rights Watch likewise reported that he personally controlled the country's foreign-held hard currency accounts. Prestige projects such as palaces and monuments were funded off-budget, while public services decayed.

Feedback and accountability

There was no institutional feedback: elections were not competitive, official statistics were unreliable, and international financial institutions found their surveillance obstructed. The main signal was failure: Global Witness reports that in 2004 Niyazov admitted on television that many public-sector workers had not been paid for months.

Repression and rights

• After an armed attack on Niyazov's motorcade in November 2002, which the government called an assassination attempt, the authorities carried out mass arrests and closed trials; Human Rights Watch reported in 2006 that dozens of those arrested were believed to be held incommunicado.
• In September 2006 the journalist and human rights defender Ogulsapar Muradova, a Radio Liberty correspondent, died in prison in highly suspicious circumstances after conviction on politically motivated charges of illegal weapons possession.
• Dissidents were exiled, evicted, detained in psychiatric hospitals or banned from travelling; Human Rights Watch described torture as rampant in places of detention.
• Bohr documents the dismantling of intellectual life: unions of writers and other professions were liquidated, most research institutes and the Academy of Sciences were closed, hundreds of libraries were shut, and compulsory schooling was cut to nine years.
• Social cuts hit the vulnerable: Global Witness reports that in 2004 thousands of nurses were replaced by conscript soldiers and that pension entitlements were removed or cut by a third in 2006, affecting about 400,000 people.

Outcomes

Niyazov died on 21 December 2006, aged 66. Within days the People's Council amended the constitution so that the deputy prime minister, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, could act as head of state and stand in an election held in February 2007, which he won without real competition. The regime's structure survived the founder. Global Witness cited a World Bank estimate that 58% of the population lived in poverty and a US State Department estimate of unemployment around 50% in cities and 70% in rural areas; reliable official data were not available.

Debates

• Petro-authoritarianism? Bohr argues that hydrocarbon revenue funds the security services and patronage networks that keep the regime in place, consistent with the resource-curse literature. Others stress the Soviet legacy, weak national movements and the small, controllable population. Haber and Menaldo's cross-national evidence that resource reliance does not generally cause authoritarianism is a caution against treating gas as the whole explanation.
• A social contract? Free utilities and cheap goods are sometimes described as a bargain trading benefits for obedience; the decay of health, education and pensions suggests the benefits were selective and fragile.

Lessons for institution design

• Off-budget funds under executive control are the opposite of a sovereign wealth fund. Without a legal mandate, independent manager or disclosure, a resource fund becomes a ruler's purse.
• Information control destroys feedback. Without reliable statistics or a free press, even the ruler loses sight of the economy.
• Personalist regimes can institutionalise succession quickly when elites coordinate to preserve the system.

Further reading

• Annette Bohr, Turkmenistan: Power, Politics and Petro-Authoritarianism (Chatham House, 2016)
• Global Witness, It's a Gas: Funny Business in the Turkmen-Ukraine Gas Trade (2006)
• Human Rights Watch, "Turkmenistan: New Leader Should End Rights Abuses" (2006)