ASHGABAT: Turkmenistan's parliamentary elections on Sunday got a wary response from locals and were denounced by exiled opponents of hardline President Saparmurat Niyazov.

Fifty seats in the single-chamber parliament or mejilis were up for grabs in the elections in this former Soviet Central Asian republic that holds vast natural gas reserves and neighbours Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.

Voting near the capital Ashgabat, Niyazov insisted that the parliamentary vote - held every five years in this largely desert nation - conformed to democratic standards.

"Democratic values are the basis of our social life," the State Information Agency quoted Niyazov as saying. Niyazov, 64, permits no dissent and has been increasingly criticized by the west, particularly for a crackdown that followed an alleged coup attempt in 2002.

The only registered political party is his Democratic Party. The last such poll in 1999 was said by officials to have got a 98.9 percent turn-out. The country is closely watched - Moscow needs Turkmenistan's gas to help meet growing European demand, while Washington has promoted other export routes and sees Ashgabat as a key link in the turbulent region.

But no foreign observers were invited to the election, including from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of which Turkmenistan is a member, or from Russia - often a cheerleader for elections in former Soviet states.

With some ballot boxes still to be gathered the election commission said it had recorded a 76 percent turn-out among the 2.5 million eligible voters. In Ashgabat participation appeared low, with officials resorting to more or less blatant pressure.

At Ashgabat's state university first-time voters received copies of Niyazov's "spiritual guide" the Rukhnama - compulsory reading in schools and workplaces - together with flowers for women. The mejilis was supplanted as the top legislative body last year when Niyazov created a higher body, the partly appointed People's Council. -AFP