Turkmen president wins 97 percent of vote in election

ASHGABAT (Reuters) - Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov secured five more years as leader of the Central Asian state by winning 97 percent of votes in an election shunned by OSCE observers for a lack of competition, the Central Election Commission said on Monday.

Berdymukhamedov, 54, had faced seven token candidates who held no ambition of dislodging the trained dentist as president of a country holding 4 percent of global gas reserves and ranked by rights groups among the most repressive in the world.