Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, set to win new term, sings on TV and participates in, and wins, cycle and horse races

There is little doubt that Turkmenistan’s president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, will win a new term in office in elections set for later this month. The question is what the dictatorial leader will get up to during the campaign.

This week, he was pictured giving a rendition of an apparently self-written song to a group of workers in the country, accompanying himself on the guitar.

Wherever the Turkmen president goes, he is followed by the cameras: recently he was spotted in a fetching all-green tracksuit pumping iron in the gym. He also regularly participates in, and wins, races on bicycle, in cars and on horseback.

The song is not the first time has displayed his musical prowess. He was recently featured on Turkmen state television at the DJ decks, playing a remix of Justin Timberlake’s song Can’t Stop the Feeling. The president, dressed in a red cardigan and tie, spun the track while tables of dignitaries and several people dressed in giant rooster costumes looked on applauding.



Berdymukhamedov was formerly a dentist, before becoming health minister under the country’s previous president Saparmurat Niyazov, who was known for renaming the months of the year after himself and his mother, and erecting a gold statue of himself that rotated to face the sun.



When he took over after Niyazov’s death, Berdymukhamedov dismantled the personality cult and appeared to embark on gradual liberalisation, but in time he simply began building his own cult. The country has no free media and is possibly the world’s second most isolated state, after North Korea.

In 2015, a statue in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat, was unveiled of Berdymukhamedov atop a horse, cast in bronze and covered in 24-carat gold leaf. The same year he was named “People’s Horse Breeder”, an honorary title bestowed upon him during the country’s Day of the Horse.

However, two years previously, during Day of the Horse celebrations, the president fell off his horse mid-race, causing a terrified scramble of bodyguards. He was not injured seriously, but the crowd were searched on exiting the event to prevent video of the fall from leaking. Nevertheless, footage surfaced online.

The country recently changed the constitution to prevent age limits on the presidency, paving the way for Berdymukhamedov to rule for life. The changes also extended presidential terms to seven years from the current five. The vote is due on 12 February and the president is expected to win by a crushing majority.