Turkmenistan: Saparmurat Niyazov

'There have only been a few cults of personality to match this; Kim Jong Il and Kim Il-sung in North Korea, and Mao Tse-Tung. The narcissism of the man is really beyond description - he has essentially turned himself into a living god.'

Professor Jerrold Post (Director, Political Psychology Program, George Washington University) 

Despite over a decade of independence from the former Soviet Union, Turkmenistan has not yet exorcised the spectre of totalitarianism. It is now under the yoke of 'President for Life' Saparmurat Niyazov, also known as Turkmenbashi the Great.

Niyazov would make a good psychological study: orphaned by the age of 8, he grew up in a (state) orphanage, and, at 22, joined the Communist Party. Like Stalin, he deferred to the greater Soviet powers such that he rose quickly through the ranks, finally becoming General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan in 1985. He has shown signs of classic dictator-paranoia, especially following an attempted assassination (Stalinesque show-trials ensued). 

Following the pattern of crazy dictators, this man thinks that he is a god on earth, and has instituted a personality cult, manifesting itself in gold statues, renaming places and months (January is now named after him), and the propagation of his book, the Rukhnama (a sort of Bible/ Koran). Niyazov has various other loony ideas: he has initiated the construction of a vast ice rink (in the middle of a desert), and his artificial lake (in the middle of another desert) will probably wreck the country's whole water system.

Sadly, he follows in the line of crazy 20th-century dictators in also controlling the media, silencing (by imprisonment, exile or worse) any effective opposition, and by brainwashing the younger generation.

Turkmens receive free gas and water, but is this satisfactory compensation for their ever-lessening human rights? The EU and UN have raised concerns over the country's human rights record, but there are complications: Turkmenistan allows the US airforce to fly over it, and, moreover, it is rich in gas and oil.

Niyazov therefore goes on unchallenged.

This information was culled chiefly from Tom Templeton's 'The Man who would be King', from the Observer Magazine.

Peruse the Turkmen embassy website.

Or the website of the (exiled) opposition party.

Presumably this one was written by some brainwashed youth: http://presidentniyazov.tripod.com/,

but this one wasn't: http://www.yurope.com/people/danko/niyazov.html.

Eurasianet has some useful general information.

Caligula rating: VIII.
Niyazov hasn't lapsed into any sort of incestuous immorality, but he has given importance to his horse: "a high-school maths teacher in Ashgabat misread the question 'What are the names of the mother and father of the president's horse?' and instead named the president's mother and father. As a result, she was denied accreditation."