It’s Azerbaijan’s turn
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2005
By Farhad Husseinov
ANKARA — As the threat from terrorism becomes ever more acute, the
West is caught in a strategic dilemma between stability and
democratization in the Muslim world. While the pursuit of stability
has been mostly abandoned in the Middle East, it remains operative in
the Muslim countries of the former Soviet empire – as displayed until
recent times in the West’s cooperation with autocrats like
Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov.
Azerbaijan is the latest victim of this sacrifice of freedom in the
pursuit of stability. A country of 8.5 million people – roughly half
of whom live in poverty – on the Western shores of the energy-rich
Caspian Sea, it is preparing for parliamentary elections in early
November. Baku, the capital, is the next obvious candidate for a
democratic revolution of the kind witnessed in Georgia and Ukraine. At
stake are the multibillion-dollar investments of oil giants like BP
and Chevron.
The incumbent president, Ilham Aliyev, is a Soviet-educated autocrat
who inherited power from his late father, Geidar Aliyev, in late 2003
as a result of rigged elections followed by a ruthless police
crackdown. Opposition activists were imprisoned and tortured. Yet the
creation of the first dynastic regime in the post-Soviet space was,
incongruously, blessed by the administrationof George W. Bush.
So far, Aliyev junior has proved less adept than his ex-Communist
father at playing political cat-and-mouse with Western capitals. His
regular consultations with President Vladimir Putin of Russia have not
escaped analysts’ attention. One development that apparently
infuriated Washington was the security arrangement he made with Iran
in May. This was followed by news that Azerbaijan had been used as a
conduit for supplying Russian nuclear technology to Iran.
Now that the campaign for the November elections has officially
started, efforts by the regime to steal votes are once again under
way. The main issue is the formation of election commissions dominated
by the government. The U.S. Congress and the Council of Europe demand
that these be amended to create a balance between representatives of
the government and the opposition.
Cases of harassment by the regional authorities on behalf of regime
favorites are abundant. The media – with a few embattled exceptions in
print and on the Internet – is entirely under state control. The
latest trend on Azeri TV channels is to describe opposition leaders as
either homosexual or agents of Al Qaeda. Criticism of the president
is characterized as betrayal of the motherland.
Another sign of the regime’s contempt for fair elections is the recent
reshuffling of posts within the power ministries. Hard-liners
responsible for organizing the crackdown in 2003 were rewarded with
promotions and even state medals. In this way, the government has
perpetuated a climate of arbitrariness and arrogant lawlessness.
Despite the campaign to denigrate and destroy real political
opposition, it now poses a serious challenge to the regime. Indeed,
many in Baku predict the downfall of a bankrupt government built on
corruption, nepotism, coercion and a record of political murder.
The greatest hope is invested in the newly forged Freedom Bloc, with
the pro-Western Musavat Party as its driving force, which succeeded in
holding a series of rallies across the country that the government was
compelled to allow because of domestic and international pressure. The
last such demonstration was organized in Baku on Sept. 10 and drew
about 50,000 people, many of them wearing orange shirts and waving
orange flags in an echo of the pro-democracy rallies in Ukraine last
year.
In today’s globalized world, democracy requires support from
without. The Bush administration’s “freedom agenda” is a praiseworthy
step in this regard. It should, however, also be extended to illiberal
countries that possess oil or host a NATO military base. Democratic
turnover in the post-Soviet states is not Western imperialism by
another name, as some would like us to believe. What they represent,
rather, is a shift toward the rule of law, democracy and national
reconciliation.
Azerbaijan presents the next opportunity for Western leaders to prove
their commitment to the founding principles of their own
nation-states. With time, this moral choice will prove to be a smart
strategic choice as well.
As for Putin, instead of bemoaning his country’s imperial past, he
should be the first to desire the creation of a progressive and
liberal space around it, as this would benefit no state more than
Russia itself.
Farhad Husseinov is professor of economics at Bilkent
University in Ankara and a pro-democracy activist in Azerbaijan.
