Turkmenistan\'s acting president, in his first campaign statement for next month\'s election, called for wider Internet access in the country and for improving pensions that were slashed last year, state-controlled media reported Thursday. Under the late President Saparmurat Niyazov, who ruled Turkmenistan for two decades, access to the Internet was tightly restricted to state and officially approved groups, embassies, accredited foreign journalists and international organizations. The authoritarian leader also stripped more than 100,000 elderly Turkmens of their pensions last year under a law that canceled sick leave and maternity leave payments. Deputy Prime Minister Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, who became acting president after Niyazov\'s death on Dec. 21, told voters at a campaign meeting on Wednesday that \"Internet should be accessible to every one of our citizens\" and that the pension system should be re-examined \"to help those in need,\" state newspapers reported. However, the reports said Berdymukhamedov also said it was necessary to \"steadfastly follow the bidding of the great Saparmurat Turkmenbashi,\" using the title meaning \"Father of All Turkmen\" that Niyazov bestowed on himself. Berdymukhamedov is one of six candidates for the Feb. 11 election. All candidates were chosen by the country\'s highest legislative body. Turkmenistan has only one legal political party. Those conditions have raised doubts among foreign observers about how free and fair the election will be. But Berdymukhamedov promised voters that the balloting will be \"just, honest and open,\" the reports said. \"I want to be president of a democratic country, where rich people live and work, where all conditions for free life and free work are created,\" he was quoted as saying. (AP)