In the third part of his review paper on Turkmenistan, Andrey Medvedev speaks about the family clan of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and considers different scenarios of who may become his possible successor.

Let us remind you, in the first part of the paper, the author spoke about the situation in which Turkmenistan had found itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He also considered the possible forms of the power shift in the country. The second part of the paper dealt with the current power scenarios and Turkmenistan relations with other states.

III. Family Clan and Successor Scenarios

Unlike his predecessor, the current president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has quite a large family clan which is rather characteristic of the country in general.

His son Serdar Berdymukhamedov (on the right) was elected a parliamentary deputy in November, 2016.

Earlier in June, 2016, as a deputy minister, he became the head of one of the three newly created Ministry of Interior agencies. Before that, he had occupied a top position at the State Agency on Management and Use of Hydrocarbon Resources up until its abolishment.

In 2008 – 2011, Serdar Berdymukhamedov attended the International Affairs Department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy. His fellow students and the Academy teachers recall that he was then a deliberately suave and quiet person devoid of any political ambitions.

In August, 2014, he defended his MA theses at the Turkmen Academy of Science. In less than a year, in July, 2015, he defended his Ph.D. thesis and received the Doctor of Technical Science degree.

The representatives of the so called off-shore Turkmen opposition believe that Serdar is the one preparing to become the leader of the country after Berdumukhamedov’s voluntary resignation. While doing research for this article, however, the author had confirmed the total absence of any grounds for these suppositions.

Serdar still has no political ambitions whatsoever. He is more inclined to be a businessman that a politician. His father wanted Serdar to recover the winemaking business in Turkmenistan. The results of this venture, however, are still unclear. We only know that Serdar is involved in the agricultural and the hotel businesses, and they are the main sources of his income.

Speaking of the possible successor inside the president’s family circle, another scenario seems quite interesting. It is no secret that Berdymukhamedov’s grandson Kerimguly (the eldest son of his eldest daughter Dzhakhan and Ilasgeldy Amanov) is, in fact, the president’s favorite.

Apart from Kerimguly, the Amanovs have a younger son and a younger daughter. The family resides in London.

Berdymukhamedov’s eldest daughter had followed her fathers’ footsteps in the choice of her profession and, too, became a medical scientist.

The president’s eldest son-in-law Ilasgeldy had once been the head of the State Agency on Management and Use of Hydrocarbon Resources. However, he showed himself to disadvantage after being involved in a number of scandals. After the agency was abolished, he had not received any position in the state apparatus and is currently involved in supplying the fuel products from Turkmenistan. Several affiliated companies buy the products at the stock exchange and supply them to different agents.

Berdymukhamedov’s youngest daughter Gulshan Atabayeva lives in Paris with her husband Davlet and works at the Turkmen Trade Mission in France.

There are many legends about the strong political influence of the president’s sisters. However, these legends had not been confirmed in our interviews with a retired officials who had left Turkmenistan.

Berdymukhamedov’s two sisters, Oguldzhamal and Guldzhamal, are both married, preoccupied exclusively with domestic matters, and do not have a college degree. Both had never wanted to have anything to do with state management. And so, they do not.

The president’s other sister Myakhri helps her brother to run the Turkmens of the World Humanitarian Association. Nothing is known about his yet another sister Durdynabat’s employment. Suffices it to say, she does not have a college degree, either.

Among Berdumukhamedov’s sisters, the eldest Gulnabat is the most famous one thanks to her sons – Murat and Shamurad. She had worked as the head of a khyakimlik (government office) in Ashkhabad. But she, too, is devoid of political ambitions. And her sons are famous for the impertinent personal behavior scandals that blow up around them regularly.

The fact that the president’s sisters’ children are, one way or another, involved in different business schemes is absolutely natural for Turkmenistan (and not only for Turkmenistan). So, there is competitiveness in the family. The Turkmen people joke that “there is not enough business objects for the president’s nephews, so, the latest privatization stage is launched for them only”.

The biggest problems are caused by Shamurad, the son of the eldest sister. Lately, however, he seems to have calmed down a little bit because his misbehaviors had always been followed by the presidential punishments. Berdymukhamedov had always been in control of his family clan whose leadership had never been questioned. Shamurad’s persona is influential mostly in Ashkhabad where he had been creating new markets. The same types of projects in the regions and districts are managed by the local elites.

The fact that the presidential clan wants to minimize the access to the information on its members and their personal lives is, too, quite natural for Turkmenistan. However, the hyper-control over this matter plays a negative part – there was a time when it was even fashionable to represent oneself as a “president’s first cousin once removed” of a “president’s sister’s friend” to one’s own advantage.

The president’s renown is determined not only by the inflexible vertically-integrated system of state management and the repressive state apparatus but also by the fact that, after his ascent to power, Berdumukhamedov had attempted to sanitize the nation. Our interviewees point out that, under President Niyazov’s rule, the drug use (including heroin) was very widespread among the youth. The second president supports the healthy lifestyle ideology.

We cannot state that the drug use had been eliminated completely. It is obvious, however, that the drugs accessibility had been decreased dramatically and the number of drug users had decreased, also. It had been achieved by stern measures. The word is that, in Niyazov’s time, the Turkmen secret service controlled the internal drug market through six big drug dealers (five in each region of the country + one in Ashkhabad). After Berdymukhamedov’s ascent to power, the drug market had shrunk dramatically, the illegal supplies from abroad had been cut short (this explains the rise of the armed clashes), the prices had gone up and became way above one’s budget. This is considered Berdymukhamedov’s achievement.

There is also the fact that, despite the worsening social-economic situation and the real difficulties met by Turkmenistan due to the peculiarities of its economic model, Berdumukhamedov’s position remains stable.

…Here are the first and the second  parts of the review paper.

About the author

Andrey Medvedev is a Russian specialist in political science, the chief operating officer of the “TSPT PolitContact” autonomous non-commercial organization