09 Aug 2005

Azerbaijan politics: Orange squash

COUNTRY BRIEFING

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

Azerbaijan’s authorities, eager to forestall a repeat of Ukraine’s
“Orange revolution” at their parliamentary elections in November, have
arrested the leader of the main youth opposition group; they also seem
to be increasing the pressure on independent media. These moves, just
two months after the lifting of a ban on public demonstrations,
underline the sense of unease with President Ilham Aliyev’s
regime–even though the opposition look ill-prepared to seize power by
votes or violence.

In the wake of Azerbaijan’s 2003 presidential election, which was
widely regarded as fraudulent and brought Mr Aliyev to power in his
father’s stead, Azerbaijan’s authorities imposed a ban on public
demonstrations. The move was taken in response to a series of bloody
clashes between opposition activists and the police. Subsequent
opposition attempts at public rallies were forcibly repressed, mostly
recently in late May 2005, when police arrested between 45 and 300
people ahead of a rally that numbered several thousand.

Letting off (too much) steam

In June, and perhaps under pressure from the US administration to
observe some basic democratic norms, the authorities lifted the ban on
demonstrations. An estimated 10,000 participated in a rally in Baku on
June 4th that called for regime change and warned the authorities not
to attempt to manipulate the results of the parliamentary election
scheduled for November this year. Two weeks later an estimated 20,000
demonstrators returned to the streets of the capital in a protest
organised by three leading opposition parties–Musavat (Equality), the
reformist wing of the Party of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan (PPFA)
and the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (DPA). As before, many
participants wore orange clothing to evoke links with the Ukrainian
popular protests that ensured Viktor Yushchenko became president in
spite of official efforts to steal the election. A third major
demonstration, held on July 10th, brought an estimated 18,000-20,000
opposition supporters onto the streets. Later that month, the
coalition began selecting joint candidates to contest seats in the
parliamentary election.

It appears that the momentum generated by the opposition, although
limited, has unnerved Azerbaijan’s government. In late July the
authorities began preparations for the election by launching what the
opposition claims is a smear campaign conducted via state-controlled
television against Ali Kerimli, the leader of the PPFA. Arguably, this
was inevitable in the run-up to the election. The authorities’ latest
move, however, was more surprising and it smacks of an over-reaction:
on August 7th Ruslan Bashirli, the leader of the youth group Yeni
Fikir (New Thought) was arrested on charges of plotting a coup in
league with Armenian special services and the US-based National
Democratic Institute (NDI).

Mr Bashirli’s group is modelled on the youth movements that played a
catalysing role in the “popular revolutions” in Serbia, Ukraine and
Georgia. The charges against him are reminiscent of others levelled
against Azerbaijan’s opposition leaders now in exile. The alleged
connection with Armenia paints Mr Bashirli in a very bad light
domestically, given the unresolved conflict between Azerbaijan and
Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. The inclusion of the NDI in the alleged
coup plot draws on conspiracy theories–espoused by many CIS
governments–that insist the US masterminded political change in
Georgia, Ukraine and the Kyrgyz Republic and plans to topple other CIS
regimes.

Since Mr Bashirli’s arrest there have been clashes between pro-Aliyev
and Yeni Fikir/PPFA supporters outside a building that houses several
independent and opposition media outlets. On August 8th the editors of
those newspaper and agencies issued an international appeal, saying
that their building was in danger of being overrun and asking for
pressure to be put on the authorities to guarantee media freedom,
particularly in the run-up to the election.

Oil versus freedom

The authorities’ latest moves to crack down on the opposition are not
dissimilar to the tactics employed in the past–breaking up opposition
rallies, harassing independent and opposition media, using the full
weight of the state apparatus to support the main ruling party, Mr
Aliyev’s Yeni (New) Azerbaijan Party (YAP), and preventing opposition
leaders from contesting elections. For instance, seven prominent
opposition activists were sentenced in October 2004 to prison terms of
between two and five years, on charges of inciting violence in the
aftermath of the 2003 presidential election. The authorities wanted to
keep these leaders out of politics until after the parliamentary
election, but have bowed to outside pressure to release them.
Nevertheless, the convictions have not been revoked, so the opposition
leaders are unable to stand in the forthcoming parliamentary election.

In this context, the decision to arrest Mr Bashirli and to disrupt is
hardly surprising. Western states, principally the US government, were
only mildly critical of the election process that brought Mr Aliyev to
power despite well-founded criticisms by international observers. This
laid the US and its allies open to accusations of a double-standard,
because it appeared willing to tolerate a non-democratic regime in
Baku so long as multi-billion-dollar oil investments in Azerbaijan
remained secure. However, it is arguable that the situation is no
longer so favourable for Mr Aliyev. The US has become more assertive
in its promotion of democracy within the past year and there is an
expectation that Azerbaijan’s president, as a young moderniser, will
be more liberal in the political sphere than his father.

The US has called for the parliamentary election to be free and fair
and to meet international standards; the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan,
Reno Harnish, says that the US will provide US$7m towards the cost of
the ballot. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
has also hinted that if the November election is marred by electoral
fraud it may consider temporarily suspending Azerbaijan’s mandate. In
this context, it may be that the arrest of Mr Bashirli–on charges that
are likely to be met with incredulity among Western governments–is a
step too far for Azerbaijan’s government.

The domino’s not for toppling

Mr Bashirli’s arrest betrays nervousness on the part of the
authorities ahead of the parliamentary election. This is slightly
surprising because the conditions in Azerbaijan are much less
favourable for the opposition than was the case in Georgia and Ukraine.

First, the opposition is still far from united and has generally
proved to be ineffectual. It will not take much for any new-found
sense of unity in the opposition to crumble, nor does Azerbaijan have
the depth of civil society development that has often proved to be a
necessary base for political change.

Second, the anti-government demonstrations organised by the opposition
following the 2003 presidential election discredited the main
opposition groups in the eyes of the public, largely because the
demonstrations resulted in violence, leaving many Azerbaijanis afraid
of a return to the instability of the early 1990s. Indeed, the public
is wary of many of the leading opposition figures, since they are
associated with the leadership of the early 1990s that brought the
country to the brink of civil war. Although Mr Kerimli, the PPFA
leader, is not tainted by having served in government in the early
1990s, he still does not have sufficient support as yet to put any
significant pressure on Mr Aliyev.

Third, the security services and other state agencies appear to be
loyal to the president. This was demonstrated most notably in the
aftermath of the 2003 presidential election, when the police and
security services violently dispersed demonstrators who were
protesting against the election result. Moreover, the government’s
control over the state apparatus allows it to exert a high degree of
influence over the final election results.

Nevertheless, the ouster of Askar Akayev as president of the Krygyz
Republic demonstrated the potential for a regime to crumble in the
face of mass street protests, even if the opposition is barely united,
civil society is little developed and the president tightly controls
the state apparatus (including the army and police). The chances that
Azerbaijan will see a repeat of the Orange revolution were and remain
slim; Mr Bashirli’s arrest shows that the authorities want to lengthen
the odds still further–and that they are not particularly concerned
whether the country’s image is damaged in the process.

SOURCE: ViewsWire Eastern Europe