Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedow (born 29 June 1957) is a Turkmen politician, lawyer and former dentist who is currently the chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan. He previously served as the second president of Turkmenistan from 2006 to 2022, when he entered into a power-sharing arrangement with his son, Serdar, the current president.

A lawyer and former dentist, Berdimuhamedow served in the government of the president, Saparmurat Niyazov, as the minister of health in 1997 and as the deputy cabinet chair in 2001. He became acting president following Niyazow's death on 21 December 2006 and subsequently won the 2007 presidential election. He faced no meaningful opposition and won by an overwhelming margin with 89% of the vote. In 2012, he was re-elected for a second term with 97% of the vote and he was re-elected again in 2017 with 97.7% of the vote. He was among the candidates elected to the People's Council of Turkmenistan on 28 March 2021, as a member from Ahal Region. He reportedly received 100% of votes from the electors. On 14 April 2021, he was unanimously elected chairman of the People's Council, the upper chamber of the Turkmen parliament.

Like his predecessor, Berdimuhamedow headed an authoritarian regime and is the subject of a cult of personality. Rights groups have described Turkmenistan under Berdimuhamedow as one of the most repressive countries in the world, accusing Berdimuhamedow, his relatives, and his associates of possessing and exercising unlimited power over all aspects of public life.

Berdimuhamedow stepped down as president on 19 March 2022, being succeeded by his son, Serdar, who won a snap election deemed as neither free nor fair, making Turkmenistan the first Central Asian country to be ruled by a dynastic system in modern times. The People's Council was subsequently re-formed as the country's top leadership body in January 2023, with Serdar then reappointing his father as its chairman and granting him the title "National Leader of the Turkmen People".

Berdimuhamedow was born on 29 June 1957 in Babarap, in what is now Gökdepe District, Ahal Province, to Mälikguly Berdimuhamedowiç Berdimuhamedow (1932–2021) and Ogulabat Kürräýewna Kürräýewa (1937–2023). He is the only son in a family of six children. Berdimuhamedow’s father worked as a senior Interior Ministry officer in a prison guard detachment. He retired as a colonel of police. Berdimuhamedow's grandfather, Berdimuhamed Annaýew, was a local teacher who served in the Red Army during World War II as part of the 748th Rifle Regiment of the 206th Rifle Division of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. In September 1943, his unit was one of the first to cross the Dnieper River. He was later killed in the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake.

Berdimuhamedow graduated from the Turkmen State Medical Institute in 1979 and entered a career in dentistry. He also received a PhD in medical sciences in Moscow. By 1992 he had become part of the dentistry faculty at the Medical Institute. In 1995, during the rule of Saparmyrat Nyýazow, he became head of the dentistry center of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry.

He was appointed to the government as Minister of Health in 1997. In 2001 he was appointed as one of several deputy chairmen of the Cabinet of Ministers (also referred to as Deputy Prime Minister, despite the lack of a Prime Ministerial post in Turkmenistan), in this case responsible for health, science, education, and sports. In April 2004, Nyýazow suspended Berdimuhamedow's salary for three months because healthcare workers were not being paid.

The Health Ministry was responsible for carrying out Nyýazow's order to close all hospitals outside of the national and provincial capitals in 2005.