Turkmenistan held its first elections to a newly created senate on March 28 with 112 candidates contesting 48 senate seats.
Turkmen authorities declared within hours of the vote that turnout in the country of 5.8 million people was 98.7 percent of eligible voters.
Profiles of candidates published by the government newspaper, Netralny Turkmenistan, indicated that most of the candidates in the March 28 vote were civil servants.
Turkmenistan's new two-chamber parliament, known as the Milli Genes, or National Council, will be made up of 56 senators and 125 deputies.
In addition to the 48 candidates to be declared as the winners of senate seats during the next week, Berdymukhammedov also will designate his own choices for eight other senate seats.
