ASHKABAD, Dec 21: Turkmenistan’s authoritarian President Saparmurat Niyazov, who ruled his gas-rich Central Asian nation with an iron fist for more than 20 years, died on Wednesday sparking a likely power struggle for his succession.

Mr Niyazov died of a a heart attack at 66, state media announced.

“He died in the night due to sudden cardiac arrest,” a statement broadcast on national television said.

The screen showed a portrait of Niyazov — known as Turkmenbashi, or Leader of all Turkmens, and self-proclaimed president for life — surrounded by a black border against the background of the national flag.

For two decades, Niyazov crushed opposition and pursued an extravagant personality cult, renaming January after himself, April after his mother, and erecting a rotating gold statue of himself in the centre of the capital Ashkabad. The interim president of Turkmenistan lamented Niyazov's death, saying in his first statement that the Central Asian republic had been `orphaned’ by its loss.

“We have today lost a great man. Our country is orphaned,” the deputy prime minister, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, said on Turkmen television, sitting in the chair of the self-styled former “Father of all Turkmen”.

Flags were lowered throughout the capital yesterday all 23 government-owned newspapers halted publication, and the government cancelled public New Year's festivities. “We are all in shock,” a senior official told AFP.

Analysts forecast a power struggle following his exit from this politically isolated, largely desert nation of five million people.

CONDOLENCES: The president and the prime minister have expressed heartfelt condolences over the death of President Niyazov, PPI adds from Islamabad.