Turkmenistan’s President, Saparmurad Niyazov is number one with a bullet (pun possibly intended) on the “cuckoo regime hot 100”. I suppose if you had Having Iran and Afghanistan as neighbors, you would be feeling kinda edgy too.
He began by renaming the months of the year after himself, his mother, who died in an earthquake when Niyazov was eight, and a few of his favourite words (“Flag Month”, for example); and followed it up by decreeing that old age officially doesn’t begin until 85. This was possibly in relation to both his 62nd birthday – which he celebrated by dying his hair jet-black – and his rampant hypochondria. On Turkmenistan’s website, there is more about Niyazov’s recent doctor’s appointment than on melons and sulphur combined. “I cannot help but admire [the President’s] inexhaustible power of life!” his doctor, “famous surgeon” Hans Meisner, is quoted as saying. Apparently, millions of the poverty-stricken people of Turkmenistan “sighed with relief” at the news. “Let us remember it uninterruptedly!” the website urges. With little else but melons and sulphur to contemplate, this shouldn’t be hard.
Have to admit that I like the phrase “Let us remember it uninterruptedly!”. It reads like a fumbled English sub-title in a old HK movie. I’m waiting for the decree for underwear to be worn on the outside.