Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow: Difference between revisions

'''Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdihuhamedow''' (born June 29, 1957) is a Turkmen politician who has served as the president of Turkmenistan from 2007 to 2022. Berdimuhamedow, a dentist by profession, served in the government under President [[Saparmurat Niyazov]] as minister of health beginning in 1997 and as deputy prime minister beginning in 2001. He became acting president following Niyazov's death on 21 December 2006 and subsequently won the February 2007 presidential election. He faced no meaningful opposition in the vote and won by an overwhelming margin. In the February 2012 presidential election, he was re-elected with 97% of the vote. He uses the honorific title Arkadag, meaning "Patron". Although initially undoing Niyazov's regulations, he has set up a [[Cult of personality|personality cult]] of his own.

Berdymukhammedov was the grandson of a distinguished local schoolteacher. In 1979 he graduated from the dental faculty of the Turkmen State Medical Institute and started work as a dentist in an Ashgabat clinic. By 1987 he had gradually increased his responsibilities and moved up professionally. He then studied therapeutic dentistry in Moscow for three years, returning to Ashgabat in 1990 to a teaching post at the Turkmen Medical Institute. In 1995 he moved to the Ministry of Health. Two years later he was appointed minister of health, and in April 2001 he became deputy prime minister responsible for education, science, and health.

Berdymukhammedov was elected to a second term as president in 2012 and to a third term in 2017. Despite steps that seemed to indicate his intention to remain president for life, his health reportedly declined after 2019. In February 2022 Berdymukhammedov set an early presidential election for March to elect his successor. His son, Serdar, won the election with more than 70 percent of the vote and took over as president days later. Gurbanguly, meanwhile, retained his role as chair of the People’s Council (Khalk Maslahaty), the upper chamber of the legislature created in 2021.

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