Turkmenistan's authoritarian leader has proven he doesn't only win elections easily, coming first in a car race he wasn't even supposed to take part in.
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Turkmenistan`s President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov sits in a Volkicar after winning a car race in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Saturday. (AP-Yonhap News) |
President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov drove to the racing track in a Bugatti sports car Saturday morning ostensibly to give his blessing to the former Soviet Central Asian nation's maiden automotive competition.
While an event presenter introduced the president, he received a request nobody in Turkmenistan would be likely turn down. ``Can I take part?'' Berdymukhamedov asked.
Before long, the president had changed into racing gear, entered the zippy and diminutive Turkish-made Volkicar automobile and promptly proceeded to record the best time in the time-trial challenge.
Announcers at the race said the winning car will be given to the national sports museum.
The apparently choreographed display appears to be another episode in an ongoing state project to cast the president as an effortlessly competent man of action.
Berdymukhamedov initially favored a low-key style after taking power in the wake of his eccentric predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov's death in late 2006, but his public persona has become subject of an increasingly grand mythology. He won presidential elections in February with 97 percent of the vote.
His choice to travel to Saturday's race in a Bugatti was in stark contrast with his preferred mode of transport during the elections, when he drove to a polling station with his family in a cramped Soviet-era Zhiguli _ a car much derided in the West for its unreliability.
The government is loudly proclaiming the need to turn Turkmenistan into a sporting power at the behest of the fitness-obsessed president, and the race was touted as the opening salvo in the country's plan to develop competitive automotive sports.
The energy-rich desert nation, which gained independence amid the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has never won a medal in the summer Olympic Games.
Berdymukhamedov's predecessor, Niyazov, was celebrated in a cult of personality that saw cities, streets, months, periodicals and public organizations after the leader and his family members and made a two-volume spiritual tome he wrote mandatory reading.
In a vein reminiscent of Niyazov's title of Turkmenbashi, or father of all Turkmens, state media now routinely refers to Berdymukhamedov as Arkadag, which is Turkmen for protector. (AP)
<관련 한글 기사>
대통령이 자동차경주대회 출전, 우승까지!
투르크메니스탄의 철권 통치자인 구르반굴 리 베르디무하메도프 대통령이 예고없이 자동차 경주대회에 출전, 우승을 차지한 것 으로 알려졌다.
7일 AP통신에 따르면 베르디무하메도프 대통령은 이날 오전 수도인 아슈하바트에서 처음 열린 스포츠 자동차경주대회에 격려차 참석했다 즉석에서 경주에 참가해 이같은 성적을 거뒀다.
그는 자신을 소개하는 주최 측에 참가의사를 밝힌 뒤 곧바로 경주복으로 갈아입고 터키제 볼키차에 올라 타임트라이얼챌린지에서 기록을 세웠다.
이 우승차는 국가 스포츠박물관에 전시될 것으로 알려졌다.
이번 우승 이벤트는 다분히 능력을 과시하려는 대통령 홍보의 일환으로 보인다.
지난 2월 대선 때 베르디무하메도프 대통령은 소련 시절 만든 소형 지굴리 차를 몰고 투표소에 나타나기도 했다.
투르크멘 정부는 운동에 몰두한 대통령의 지시에 따라 스포츠 강대국을 표방하고 있으나 하계 올림픽에서 메달을 딴 적은 없다.
'투르크멘바시(모든 투르크멘의 아버지)'로 불렸던 독재자 사파르무라트 니야조 프 전 대통령에 이어 2007년 집권한 베르디무하메도프 대통령은 '아르카닥(투르크멘 의 보호자)'으로 선전되고 있다. (연합뉴스)
