(Reuters) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s son, Serdar, is poised to win Saturday’s snap presidential election and succeed his father as the ruler of a gas-rich Central Asian nation of six million.
President Berdymukhamedov, in power since 2007, called the vote last month, saying he wanted to give way to a new generation of leaders and the ruling Democratic party quickly nominated his son.
Serdar Berdymukhamedov, 40, who has already been elevated to the No.2 position in the country as a deputy prime minister, will run against eight other candidates, some of whom are virtually unknown low-level public servants.
An engineer and a diplomat by education, he has swiftly risen through government ranks, and local media refer to him as “the son of the nation”, while his 64-year-old father is known as Arkadag, or Protector.
The outgoing president has said he would remain the speaker of the upper house of parliament after handing over the presidency.
Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic bordering Iran and Afghanistan, sits on the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves and exports gas by pipelines to China and Russia.
(Reporting by Marat Gurt; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; editing by Barbara Lewis)
