Election Candidates Hint at Greater Freedoms

Despite hints of relaxation, substantive change in the area of freedom of expression is a long way off in Turkmenistan, NBCentralAsia observers say. State control of the media remains as rigorous as ever.



During a meeting with voters last week, acting president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov, said Turkmenistan’s citizens had the constitutional right to express their views openly and “can have freedom of speech”.



Berdymuhammedov is seen as the ruling elite’s favourite and thus the likely winner of the February 11 presidential election. There are five other candidates.



His remarks amount to a promising statement for a country that is currently close to the bottom of the Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Independent journalists are under surveillance by the secret services and are afraid to express their opinions. Restrictions on foreign journalists have led to several media offices closing down, while Russian and other foreign papers are banned from sale.



Turkmenistan has several state newspapers plus four government broadcasters – Miras, Altyn Asyr, Yashlyk and Channel 4 – which report only on the successes achieved by the authorities and broadcast folk music. Entertainment programmes from Russia’s First Channel are broadcast for two hours a day, but are censored and cut beforehand.



NBCentralAsia sources inside Turkmenistan say voters are hoping for real change after various candidates promised free speech, longer transmissions of Russian TV, and greater access to the internet.



“The public is so tired of streams of lies, poverty and everything else that it is prepared to dive headfirst into freedom,” said one Ashgabat-based reporter.



However, media-watcher Rustem Safronov disagrees, arguing that that the authorities fear a social explosion and will take steps to maintain control over the population.



“Berdymuhammedov is careful,” he said. “On the one hand, he promises some concessions on information policy, but on the other, the authorities are not ready to allow complete ‘glanost’ [openness] – they well remember what happened to [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, who lost control of the political process when he opened the sluice-gates.”



NBCentralAsia media-expert Oleg Gant believes the freedom of speech will remain a restricted concept in the new authorities’ world view until such time as private media emerge and more liberal legislation is passed – and that is likely to take a long time.



“It’s going to be an extremely difficult process. Even in the best possible scenario, where there is complete freedom of speech, journalists will continue censoring themselves for a long time to come, and this will be the major constraining factor,” he said.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)