Eurasia Daily Monitor
September 23, 2008 — Volume 5, Issue 182
AZERBAIJAN’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF
by Vladimir Socor
Azerbaijan’s presidential election campaign opened officially on
September 17 and will run until October 14, the day before the balloting.
President Ilham Aliyev, in office since 2003, is set to win a second term of
five years, on the strength of economic growth at world-record rates in
Azerbaijan (exceeding 30 percent annually) and his indisputably high
popularity rating.
Veteran opposition leaders and their respective parties, fixtures of
all post-1991 elections-the Musavat Party’s Isa Gambar, the Popular Front of
Azerbaijan Party’s (PFAP) Ali Kerimli, and the Democratic Party’s Sardar
Jalaloglu-are staying out of this presidential election. Their unprecedented
decision to bow out amounts to a tacit admission of being overtaken by the
country’s political and economic changes. The PFAP, Musavat, and some
smaller parties have created a coordinating center for political rallies and
other joint actions (Turan, September 23), avoiding however the
responsibility of participation in the institutional political process.
The election is a pluralist one despite the veteran opposition’s
abstentions. Six candidates are running against the incumbent president as
well as against each other for second place. After this election, the
runner-up candidate and his party will probably aspire to the role of leader
of a moderate opposition, with an eye to the 2009 parliamentary elections.
The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) rapporteur for
Azerbaijan, Andres Herkel, describes the pre-election atmosphere as
characterized by a lack of real competition and low public interest in the
political process. Herkel, an Estonian parliamentarian, ascribes this
atmosphere primarily to the old opposition parties’ bowing out of the
campaign. Although he has often criticized Azerbaijan’s authorities, Herkel
did recognize the elements of pluralism in the current campaign during his
September 18 press conference in Baku (APA, September 18), earning
disapproval from the veteran opposition’s press (Azadlig, Yeni Musavat,
September 20).
In a joint statement, PACE and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe’s Office of Democratic Institution and Human Rights
(OSCE/ODIHR) have welcomed Azerbaijan’s decision to invite a large number of
international observers to the election (Turan, September 14).
The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) registered the last two
presidential candidates on September 13, ahead of the electoral campaign’s
September 17 official start (, September 13, 15). A minimum of
40,000 signatures from registered voters were required for registration of a
presidential candidate by the CEC. The field of registered candidates looks
as follows (Turan, September 15-22): President Ilham Aliyev, supported by
the governing Yeni (New) Azerbaijan Party; Igbal Agazade, a member of the
Milli Majlis (parliament) and the leader of the Umid (Hope) Party; Hafiz
Hajiyev, the leader of the Modern Musavat Party (an moderate offshoot of the
diehard opposition’s Musavat Party); Gudrat Hasanguliyev, a member of the
Milli Majlis and the leader of the United People’s Front of Azerbaijan Party
(a splinter from the PFAP); Fazil Gazanfaroglu, a member of Milli Majlis and
a leader of the Great Creation Party; Fuad Aliyev, the leader of the Liberal
Democratic Party (an offshoot from the older Liberal Party, which is
boycotting this election); and Gulamhusein Alibeyli, a professor of law at
Baku State University and former chairman of the PFAP’s political council,
who is in the process of creating a right-of-center party in opposition to
the authorities.
As in previous elections, local administration officials may fall back
on the traditional practice of inflating the incumbent authority’s margin of
victory. President Aliyev warned local officialdom, repeatedly and publicly,
against tampering with the vote count during the 2003 presidential election
and 2005 parliamentary elections and again this year. The president and the
governing Yeni Azerbaijan party garnered genuinely large majorities in those
previous elections. Nevertheless, some overzealous local officials resorted
to ballot-box stuffing to achieve even more flattering scores in their
respective districts. This reflexive inclination, particularly in the
countryside, remains the main challenge to the integrity of elections in
Azerbaijan.
The emergence of a new generation of opposition leaders-and,
correspondingly, the veteran diehards fading from the scene-are signs of a
gradual maturing process in Azerbaijan’s electorate and political class.
This process may well last for several more electoral cycles before taking
roots in society. This presidential election cannot possibly be impeccable,
but it is likely to be credible.
Public confidence in Aliyev’s policies and his likely re-election rest
on three main factors: First, the president’s consistently pro-Western
orientation, particularly with regard to oil and gas development and
exports, and the resulting economic boom; second, the opposition candidates’
lackluster political records and failure to develop convincing programs;
and, third, the steady improvement in the conduct of electoral campaigns in
Azerbaijan in recent years.
The challenge is not only for Azerbaijan to conduct a credible
election, but also for international organizations and Western governments
to recognize evolutionary improvements in Azerbaijan’s electoral processes
from one electoral cycle to another.
–Vladimir Socor