INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES COURT ANGER IN AZERBAIJAN CAMPAIGN
By Philip Kennicott
Washington Post Staff Writer

Washington Post
Oct 5 2005

BAKU, Azerbaijan — For Dadas Alisov, a candidate in Azerbaijan’s
upcoming parliamentary elections, most voter meetings begin with
several tense minutes of pure rage. He listens as old men hammer
him with questions about their future and whether they will ever see
their homes again.

Alisov, left a refugee by his country’s war with Armenia, hopes
to represent other refugees, a diaspora of the desperately poor
and dispossessed spread throughout Azerbaijan. More than a decade
has passed since their communities in the disputed territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh were seized by Armenian soldiers, and they are so
hungry for attention that they treat Alisov as if he already represents
the government that they declare neglects them.

Azerbaijan lost about 16 percent of its territory to Armenia in the
war, one of multiple conflicts that erupted within the borders of
the old Soviet Union with the erosion of Moscow’s authority. The
half-million people who remain refugees in Azerbaijan are unable to
return home and often unable to begin new lives in resettlement areas.

“The elevators don’t work, the roofs leak,” said Alishan Aliev, who
lives in a Soviet-era housing block in Sumgayit, a polluted former
chemical industrial center north of Baku, the capital. The sun was
setting when he met with Alisov in a trash-strewn courtyard. “For 13
years the rain leaks in on us. We don’t need elevators. But we need
a roof.”

This anger is the wildcard in the Nov. 6 elections. While the
authoritarian government of President Ilham Aliyev and an organized
opposition fight for power in the country’s capital, independent and
mostly young candidates such as Alisov are trying to bypass these
old political feuds.

They go where the complaints are, listen and try to gain traction in
the campaign with something that is a rare commodity in this land of
corruption: attention to real problems. They are testing electoral
techniques they learned in the United States and Europe, where many
of them studied.

Independent candidates flooded into the parliamentary contest after
Aliyev, under international pressure, issued a resolution on May
11 reforming the electoral process. Although some are allied with
the ruling party or have opposition affiliations, many of them
want no part of the animosity between Aliyev’s government and its
long-standing critics.

“The opposition is interested in having chaos in everything,” Alisov
said. “I am personally against the idea of revolution because the
question is, who is going to do it, and who will get the benefit?”

Opposition leaders such as Isa Gambar, who heads the Musavat party,
are scornful of this approach. They argue that in an authoritarian
country, anyone who supports free and fair elections is by definition
in the opposition. No matter what label they choose, opposing
Aliyev’s handpicked candidates means fighting the same battle against
vote-rigging, ballot-stuffing and relentless government propaganda.

Alisov makes do on his own. He travels the country in a Lada, a
tiny Russian-built car, driven by a friend. He is without the larger
resources of the established opposition parties, including the access
they have gained to state television, part of a package of concessions
the Aliyev government made under international pressure.

Following a widely criticized 2003 election, in which Aliyev succeeded
his late father as president, Azerbaijan has been under increasing
scrutiny for electoral fraud and human rights abuses.

On Sept. 10, as the organized opposition was holding a rally, Alisov
held what he said was Azerbaijan’s first political fundraiser. For
about $1,000, he rented a restaurant in Baku, and after inviting
his friends, who contributed, and his impoverished constituents, who
didn’t, he came out about $1,000 ahead. As he and his supporters gave
speeches, elderly men in old suits and carefully brushed hats sat at
tables, pecked at hors d’oeuvres and talked of Nagorno-Karabakh and
the candidate.

“Dadas is very young,” observed Maharram Mahi, 81, a schoolteacher
from one of the occupied districts. “I have read his bio. He is
educated. He is a lawyer. He speaks English.”

Alisov, 30, makes no secret of his connection to the U.S. Embassy,
where he worked as a political adviser. And though he looks older
than his age and dresses in conservative suits, he does his best to
make a virtue of his youth in a society that prizes experience and
connections in its political leaders.

At the fundraiser, several voters said they admired his youthfulness
and energy, but they were reluctant to pledge support. Alisov said
that, after years of disappointment, they were careful in making
promises.

“People don’t trust anymore,” he said.

Moving Forward, and Back

Like other younger, reform-minded candidates, Alisov is working to
adopt election techniques common outside Azerbaijan. He publishes
a newsletter with his biography and campaign positions, but opens
its pages to anyone who wants to send in photographs, family news or
poetry. He campaigns at funerals and weddings, two of the remaining
community events that bring together his widely dispersed voters.

He travels with three cell phones and gives out one of his numbers,
promising to help voters with their problems. In one campaign meeting,
he told a small crowd of men not to give their identity cards to
anyone in the days before the election. Collecting these cards, which
are necessary to vote, he explained, is a common technique by local
authorities to control the results.

Although the government opened up the registration process, it has also
told candidates to post their campaign materials only on officially
sanctioned poster boards. With dozens of candidates running in some
districts, there’s not room for everyone’s literature. And with little
access to television or radio, independent candidates must have name
and face recognition.

“That’s absolutely a limitation of free speech,” Ayten Shirinova,
27, another independent candidate, said of the government’s rule on
posting. She is printing her campaign literature on long rectangular
cards, designed to hang from doorknobs like the “do not disturb”
signs in hotels. In a part of the city where people are rarely home
during the day, and often unwilling to open their doors, she said
these cards were her best chance to spread her message.

Like Alisov, Vugar Mammadov collected his registration signatures
personally, part of a strategy the U.S.-educated candidate is using
to meet and interact with voters. He said he had several invitations
to join established political parties but refused them. He too prefers
the independent label.

“People expect the Soviet-style campaign,” he said. “You have a poster
with your passport photo. You send the right people flowers.

You meet a few people.”

Mammadov is trying to chart his own course. His printed material
looks different from the usual posters and pocket calendars that
almost every candidate distributes, and he is trying to use focus
groups to create a platform, rather than announcing it from the start.

Like Alisov, other candidates are focusing on anger as a powerful
political force. One Saturday morning recently, voters in candidate
Ilgar Mamadov’s district gathered spontaneously to vent their anger
about plans to build two 16-story apartment buildings in the courtyard
of their apartment complex.

They had planned to use the same space for a community center
but discovered that a building permit had been issued to a local
entrepreneur.

When about 100 men and women gathered in the courtyard, police
arrived. Mamadov intervened and helped secure the voters a rare
meeting with city officials. The permit was suspended for 30 days.

“It’s a partial victory,” said Mamadov, who is also running as an
independent. But he also said the compromise will probably last only
until the elections are over.

Despondent Voices

Few candidates encounter the level of despair and anger that Alisov
hears on a daily basis from refugee voters. He said it was exhausting
to experience it, but necessary.

“It’s not so important to win as it is to show that the new generation
can do something,” he said. He fears a creeping apathy and cynicism
among his voters that will spread to all politicians, even those
attempting to reform the system.

Before leaving for two more late meetings with refugees in Sumgayit,
Alisov listened to his campaign staffers. One told him that his posters
were being torn down, at least 10 or 15 to date. He told them to hang
them higher, above the reach of children. He made plans to visit a
high school because, he said, teachers have sway with voters.

He made plans for yet another wedding visit.

Then he went out again to meet voters. They told him that it had been
years since they had seen their homes in the Armenian-occupied zone,
and years since they had seen their representative in parliament. “He
came and promised he would solve our problems,” said one man. “But
he does nothing.”

Alisov waited for things to calm down before he began his campaign
pitch.

“I’m sorry,” he began, quietly. “Please don’t think that I’m trying
to teach you. I am a refugee myself.” He went on to tell them that
the United States won’t come to fix their problems, that Azerbaijan
must work to build support for its position in Europe, and that the
only way out of their poverty is education.

He promised little and, in the end, he left with pledges of support.

But later he said that these are often just a form of politeness
among people who are desperate for anyone to listen to them.