ASHGABAT, TURKMENISTAN (AFP) – Voting was underway in Turkmenistan yesterday for a tightly-controlled leadership election that is all but certain to yield ex-Soviet Central Asia’s first father-son succession.

Nine candidates are in the fray in the republic of six million people, but President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who tolerates no opposition and has dominated public life since the country’s founding president died in 2006, is not among them.

Berdymukhamedov senior signalled his decision to step aside last month and allow “young leaders” to govern.

The announcement has seen the role of victor-in-waiting fall to his son, Serdar Berdymukhamedov, 40, who has rapidly risen to the top of government.

A state television announcer confirming the beginning of voting at 7am yesterday said the elections showed “the irreversibility of the process of democratisation of modern Turkmen society”.

Polling stations that will close at 7pm were busy on a cloudy day in the capital Ashgabat, with young Turkmen wearing either suits with black ties or embroidered ankle-length red dresses chatting and giggling in the queues.

Gulya Agayeva, 20, told AFP she had been encouraged to vote by her teachers.

“They said it is our civic duty, that our future depends on our choice,” Agayeva said, confirming that she had cast her vote for Berdymukhamedov junior.

Officials contacted by AFP were unable to confirm when preliminary results would be announced.

An inauguration ceremony has been scheduled for March 19, state media said on Friday.

Berdymukhamedov senior, 64, benefits from a glitzy leadership cult that includes a golden statue of him on horseback and elicits comparisons to North Korea – a country that has already witnessed two hereditary successions.

Turkmen state television pays fawning tribute to his hobbies – horse riding, songwriting and rally car driving to name a few – and the so-called “protector” is a phenomenon on foreign social media, all of which are blocked.

The leader, who claims Turkmenistan has not suffered a single case of coronavirus, said last month that he wishes to remain in politics in his parallel role as chairman of the Parliament’s upper chamber.

LVIV, UKRAINE (AP) – Russian forces appeared to make progress from northeast Ukraine in their slow fight to reach the capital, Kyiv, while tanks and artillery pounded places already under siege with shelling so heavy it prevented residents of one city from burying the growing number of dead.

In past offensives in Syria and Chechnya, Russia’s strategy was to crush armed resistance with sustained airstrikes and shelling that leveled population centres. That kind of assault has cut off Ukraine’s southern port city of Mariupol, and a similar fate could await Kyiv and other parts of the country if the war continues.

In Mariupol, unceasing barrages have thwarted repeated attempts to bring in food and water and to evacuate trapped civilians.

Mariupol’s death toll has passed 1,500 in 12 days of attack, the mayor’s office said.

Continued shelling forced crews to stop digging trenches for mass graves, so the “dead aren’t even being buried”, the mayor said.

Russian forces have hit more than a dozen hospitals since they invaded Ukraine on February 24, according to the World Health Organization.

Ukrainian officials reported yesterday that heavy artillery damaged a cancer hospital and several residential buildings in Mykolaiv, a city 489 kilometres west of Mariupol.

The conflict has already sent 2.5 million people fleeing the country. Thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been killed along with many Ukrainian civilians.

On the ground, the Kremlin’s forces appeared to be trying to regroup and regain momentum after encountering tough resistance and amassing heavy losses over the past two weeks.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Russia is trying to reset and “re-posture” its troops, gearing up for operations against Kyiv.

Russian forces were blockading Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, even as efforts have been made to create new humanitarian corridors around it and other urban centers so aid can get in and residents can get out.

The Russians also stepped up attacks on Mykolaiv, located 470 kilometres south of Kyiv, in an attempt to encircle the city.

As part of a multi-front attack on the capital, the Russians’ push from the northeast appeared to be advancing, a United States (US) defence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Combat units were moved up from the rear as the forces advanced to within 30 kilometres of Kyiv.

SANTIAGO, CHILE (AP) – Left-leaning former student leader Gabriel Boric vowed to improve the lives of all Chileans and attack deep inequality that has sparked massive protests, hours after being inaugurated on Friday as the youngest president in the country’s history.

At 36, Boric was only four years old when democracy returned to the South American nation following a 17-year military dictatorship that both bloodied and set the groundwork for modern Chile.

Boric has vowed that his government will attack poverty and inequality that he said are the unacceptable underbelly of a free market model imposed decades ago by General Augusto Pinochet.

“We come to give ourselves body and soul to making life better in our country,” he said in a speech from a balcony of the government building, calling for unity.

“The road will undoubtedly be long and difficult,” he said.

His four-year term begins at a moment when a constituent assembly is drawing up a new constitution for the country to replace one adopted under Pinochet.

The Socialist Party leader of the Senate Älvaro Elizalde draped the presidential sash over Boric’s shoulders during the ceremony in the legislative chambers in the city of Valparaiso.

Soon afterward, Boric swore in the leader of a cabinet which includes 14 women and 10 men.

Boric won 56 per cent of the vote in a December runoff against conservative José Antonio Kast.

While his election initially scared investors, causing drops in stock prices and the peso, he has since stressed a pragmatic streak, vowing to maintain fiscal responsibility and naming a respected economist, former Central Bank President Mario Marcel, as finance minister.

“We are going to have to make the changes step by step because if not, the risk of falling back is too great,” he said recently – a stance that may be enforced by the fact his leftist coalition has only 37 of the 155 seats in congress. Even adding other centre-left parties, his allies fall just short of a majority.

Chile has long been seen as one of Latin America’s greatest economic success stories, bolstered by its vast mineral industries.

But it has been rocked over the past decade by large protest movements – some led by Boric – demanding better education, pensions and healthcare, as well as a more egalitarian distribution of wealth.