AZERBAIJAN STRETCHES TOWARDS DEMOCRACY

Cafe Babel, France
April 18 2007

Between April 16-20, the European Council discusses the fulfilment
of the Caucasian republic’s human rights obligations

Photo: Shushi church in Nagorno Karabaj, Azerbaijan (Photo:
Sputnikmania/ Flickr)

The European Council has not been the only institution to address
the issue of the Caucasian republic. The United Nations Human Rights
Council’s session in Geneva last March also held debates on the
internally displaced population in the Azeri territory. The population
is displaced due to a conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh,
a region occupied by Armenians that declared its independence from
Azerbaijan in 1991, but that no international state has recognised. At
the start of 2007, Amnesty International published an explicit report
warning of the lack of freedom of expression and threats suffered by
local informants in Azerbaijan.

The protagonism that this ex-Soviet republic has acquired in the
last few months is not accidental. After the ‘information blackout’
that followed the turbulent legislative elections in November 2005,
the Azeri society is stretching and preparing itself to take on what
they see as a ‘political challenge.’ That is to say, the presidential
elections of 2008. The government will have to demonstrate that the
‘little gestures’ that Iiham Aliyev’s executive council has carried
out in the last few months – amnesty to political prisoners, the
remodelling of some government portfolios, the liberalisation of
foreign policy – have not been merely an image clean up to avoid
criticism from the international community, but a convinced and
convincing step towards a mature, definitive democracy.

Electoral ghosts

The election will be a real golden opportunity for the opposition.

During the 2003 presidential and 2005 legislative elections, the
opposition united its forces in a unique opposing platform against
the ‘electoral ghost’ created by Aliyev’s government. This was a
field of entertainment perfect for some elections: those of 2008,
in which the loss of breath of the opposition parties’ union – that
still hasn’t decided on what terms it will compete – can recover with
an announcement that respects international standards of cleanness
and transparency.

For Razi Nurullayev, Azeri activist and founder of the Yox youth
movement, the main challenge for the opposition is to ‘mobilise and
get society involved,’ especially the youngest sectors. ‘The young are
caught up above all in their routines and their problems getting ahead
in life,’ explains Nurullayev, who now works in the consolidation of
the ‘Coalition of Civil Society,’ a network of local and international
non-governmental organisations, civil associations and influential
persons, created in order to favour social debate and build bridges
between political life and society. ‘Citizen passivity is the base
for some bad elections.’ He is convinced that true democracy will
never exist in Azerbaijan until the Azeris get fully involved in the
day-to-day politics of the country.

Euroasiatic chessboard pawn

For the moment, the Azeri government has consented to put into
action some of the recommendations made by the European Councils
Venice Commission and organisms of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), with respect to introducing amendments
in the electoral law. Now, for example, electoral committee members
will be made up of an equal number of representatives from both the
government and the opposition.

However, in its April session, it is probable that the European
Council will insist on a change of course in other areas, including
judicial system reform, the fight against corruption and organised
crime, the situation of human rights defence NGOs in the country,
and freedom of expression and meetings. Premises that, according to
the Azeri government, the European Council should make extendible to
other countries that make up the institution.

Azerbaijan is a vital piece on the Euroasiatic chessboard. It shares
a border with Iran – where 35% of the population is Azeri. That’s
30 million against the 9 million that reside in Azerbaijan. Its
rich energy resources place it in the centre of growing Caucasian
importance in the international geopolitical situation. Azerbaijan,
however, looks at Europe knowing that its outside credibility depends
to a large extent on the democratic advances that it is capable of
stamping on its political life during the months to come.

In-text photos: Aliyevs Sr and Jr, the dynasty ruling Azerbaijan
(Ippy/ Flickr), European Council (Codl/ Flickr)

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