Limited choice of candidates for voters in Turkmenistan elections

From camel-herding nomads on its sandy border with Iran to the vast gas fields in the east, Turkmenistan's 2.5 million eligible voters started queuing up at polling stations from 8 a.m. (0300 GMT).

By early afternoon, more than 2 million had already cast their ballots, the government said.

The former Soviet Central Asian country on the Caspian Sea has been emerging from isolation since absolute leader Saparmurat Niyazov died in 2006 after an eccentric, 21-year reign.

New President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has promised to press ahead with reform and attract foreign investors.

But voters have put little faith in the election as all the candidates represent either the ruling Democratic party, the only party registered in Turkmenistan, or a handful of state-approved independents.

The run-up to the vote was marked by voter apathy and distrust of the government -- a sentiment which, like in Soviet times, people agree to share only in private in a country where criticism of the government remains taboo.

"I ticked one of the boxes without looking at the (candidate's) name," said Oraz, an Ashgabat university teacher in his thirties. "What is important to me as that they all support the president."

Voters were greeted with live music at some of the stations the government invited foreign press to visit. In what resembled a Soviet election tradition, there were also sweets being sold at some spots.

The voting itself appeared well organized, a foreign diplomat based in Ashgabat said on Sunday.

"It's more a question of how wide the choice of candidates is," said the diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The election is a key element of the new president's reform plan, which aims to create a bigger and more powerful parliament that would carry greater weight in national decision-making.

But just like under Niyazov, almost all of the 288 candidates vying for 125 seats represent the ruling party.

"It's just a sham," said Farid Tukhbatulin, a Turkmen rights campaigner who spoke to Reuters from Vienna.

The Turkmen opposition mostly resides in exile and has shown little interest in the election. None of the opposition leaders could be reached for comment or posted any statements.

"The conditions are not in place to hold a free and fair election that would be a meaningful reflection of the will of the people," Human Rights Watch said in a report last month.

Europe will be watching the vote closely as it tries to gauge how much business it can do with the gas-rich nation it sees as key to its energy diversification.

But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has not sent a full monitoring mission, saying a genuine contest was impossible. The presence of foreign media also is limited as many journalists were unable to get permission to report there.