Turkmenistan has announced “an era of supreme happiness” to mark the start of Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s second term as president.
Turkmenistan is one of the most repressive countries in the world, so repressive that the main European vote monitoring watchdog declined to send an observation team to teh election because there was simply no democracy.
Since his inauguration February 17 after winning 97 percent of the vote, Berdymukhammedov has so far announced 29 members of his new cabinet, and they include 22 ministers from the president's native Akhal Province.
Berdymukhammedov's first term was called the Great Era of Rebirth.
When Mr Berdymukhamedov, a former dentist, came to power in Feb 2007 he promised to bring in more democracy and dismantle the personality cult that his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, had built up. Detractors, though, say he has done precisely the opposite.
Neutral Turkmenistan, the state newspaper and mouthpiece, also published a new poem specially commissioned to mark the former Soviet state’s future under Mr Berdymukhamedov.
The AFP news agency quoted the poem from Neutral Turkmenistan:
"In Turkmenistan a new era has begun,
All the Earth is lit up by the light dawn,
The glory has enveloped the heart with an aura of greatness,
And in the mighty state a happy time has started!"
The theme of "supreme happiness" over the President's second term was suggested during an official meeting in Ashgabat on February 25.
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