Parliamentary election in Turkmenistan in 1999
The parliamentary elections in Turkmenistan in 1999 took place on December 12, 1999, the second parliamentary election in the history of independent Turkmenistan . The 50 MPs in the Turkmenistan Assembly were elected .
Electoral system
The Turkmen unicameral system was enshrined in the 1992 constitution . With the parliamentary elections in Turkmenistan in 1994 , the former Supreme Soviet of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was replaced as the legislative body by the Assembly of Turkmenistan . The 50 MPs in the Turkmenistan Assembly were elected by majority vote in 50 constituencies. The registration of parties and candidates in the run-up to the election was controlled by the state and was ultimately limited to the approval of the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan by President Saparmyrat Nyýazow as the only legal political party in Turkmenistan at that time.
background
The 1999 election took place at the end of the five-year legislative period following the 1994 election. The parliamentary elections in 1994 were already marked by the exclusion of any opposition and an apparent lack of political competition. In 1994, 51 candidates applied for 50 seats, so that one delegate could be elected in 49 constituencies without opposing candidates. Due to the democratic deficit in Turkmenistan, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe decided not to send a full observer mission. Instead, a needs assessment mission was deployed in November 1999 to monitor and evaluate the preparations and the proposed election process. This mission came to the conclusion that the preparation for the election also clearly fell short of the minimum OSCE standard for free elections and that therefore no observer mission was necessary on election day.
Candidates
All of the candidates who were ultimately allowed to run for election supported President Saparmyrat Niyazov's course and were close to his Democratic Party of Turkmenistan. In contrast to the previous parliamentary election in 1994, the field of applicants was significantly larger, as 104 candidates were now available for the 50 mandates. In contrast to 1994, this prevented the majority of the MPs from being elected without opposing candidates. Before the election, Nyýazov had announced that any Turkmen citizen could apply for a seat in the Turkmenistan Assembly. Thereupon Turkmen opposition members from abroad also announced their candidacy, including the former Foreign Minister Avdy Kuliev from his exile in Russia . Candidates from the opposition were not accepted by the electoral authorities, so that in the end there were more candidates to choose from, although they did not reflect a broader range of opinions, but were all loyal to the president.
Result
With an official turnout of 98.9%, the result was the following:
| Political party | Seats | Change from 1994 |
|---|---|---|
| Democratic Party of Turkmenistan | 50 | 0 |
| other parties | 0 | 0 |
| total | 50 | - |
The newly composed parliament officially started the new legislative period on January 7, 2000. There were 37 men and 13 women among the delegates.
consequences
The parliamentary election joins all elections in the history of Turkmenistan, all of which failed to meet democratic criteria and ended with a victory for the ruling party or the president. Immediately after the parliamentary elections, President Niyazov was elected president for life by the parliament, thereby underpinning his dominant position in the authoritarian system of government in Turkmenistan. Nyýazow himself also used the election as evidence of a functioning Turkmen democracy.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Parliamentary Elections, December 12, 1999 | OSCE. Retrieved April 4, 2020 .
- ^ Turkmenistan: Elections Will Not Provide Real Choice. Retrieved April 4, 2020 .
- ↑ TURKMENISTAN: parliamentary elections Majlis, 1999. Accessed April 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Turkmenistan 19991 - present. Retrieved April 4, 2020 .
- ↑ Turkmenistan profile . In: BBC News . February 26, 2018 ( bbc.com [accessed April 4, 2020]).
