Turkmenistan’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has validated the March 26 elections for the members of a newly unicameral national legislature amid reports of widespread election violations in the authoritarian Central Asian state.
None of Turkmenistan's elections has been regarded as free or fair since its exit from the Soviet Union in 1991.
CEC chief Gulmurat Muradov told reporters on March 27 that turnout was 91.12 percent out of almost 3.5 million eligible voters. The results will be announced within seven days, he said.
There have been reports of gross violations of the secrecy of voting.
An RFE/RL correspondent who went to vote in the capital, Ashgabat, said they were given a total of 12 ballots for the four members of his family that had the right to vote.
The correspondent also noticed that voters were instructed to acknowledge that they had voted by signing on lists written on separate A4 sheets of paper.
"This opens up the possibility of manipulation," the RFE/RL correspondent said.
Another RFE/RL correspondent reported that they had visited several different polling stations and that there was very little activity inside, despite the claim of more than 90 percent turnout.
He said it was very common for just one family member to show up and vote for multiple relatives.
Before the election, RFE/RL reported, authorities publicly urged voters to also cast ballots for their family members who were living abroad.
The parliament is expected to mostly rubber-stamp moves initiated by "national leader" Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov in an unelected Halk Maslahaty (People's Council) and his presidential successor and son, Serdar Berdymukhammedov.
The elections on March 26 also included local and provincial assemblies.
The elder Berdymukhammedov has spent years further quashing dissent and independent media in the gas-rich country of around 6 million people after taking over controversially following the death of the country's first post-independence dictator, "President-for-life" Saparmurat Niyazov.
For years, critics have warned that 65-year-old Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's moves were made to secure his lifetime leadership and the succession of presidency to his son and grandchildren.
The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sent a small election-assessment mission for the March 26 balloting but said it "will not carry out systematic or comprehensive observation of the voting [or] counting and tabulation on election day."
Its members planned to "visit a small number of polling stations on the day," it said.
Turkmenistan's bicameral National Council voted in January to convert the upper house into a People's Council of appointees with the elder Berdymukhammedov in charge and broad prerogatives.
The reform was proposed by the elder Berdymukhammedov around 10 months after handing the presidency to his son and less than two years after he created the upper house.
Under the hastily imposed reforms, the People's Council is the "supreme power" with authority to change the constitution and is separate from the legislature.
Its powers extend to domestic and foreign policy.
Nearly 15,000 candidates were nominated and registered for the elections across the country. Two hundred and fifty-eight were competing for the national parliament, or Mejlis.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has continued to meet with foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, since passing the presidency to Serdar Berdymukhammedov.
The Turkmen economy is heavily dependent on China, Russia, and Iran.
Reporters Without Borders ranks only Iran, Eritrea, and North Korea worse than Turkmenistan on press freedoms.