DEMOCRACY IN AZERBAIJAN SURRENDERS OIL PRESSURE
Karine Ter-Sahakyan

PanARMENIAN.Net
16.10.2008 GMT+04:00

In the held Presidential Elections of Azerbaijan the six opponents
of Aliyev were just an accompaniment necessary for the normal course
of elections.

Azerbaijani Presidential Elections that were quite correctly described
by western media as a referendum ended successfully. Ilham Aliyev got
90% of votes; his opponents acknowledged defeat and even congratulated
the re-elected president. All this happened in spite of the fact that
Ilham Aliyev first came to power in 2003 following an off-standard
"democratic" election, which, nevertheless, legalized the advent
of the family dynasty, whose forefather was Heydar Aliyev, Soviet
leader that was able to keep afloat after the USSR breakdown. In fact,
the Azerbaijani people had no other choice.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ For absence of necessity let us leave out the
reports and assessments of international observers on Â"fair and
democratic elections in stable AzerbaijanÂ". In fact, the international
community recognized the domination of oil over democracy, putting
as a foundation-stone, as usual, the right of the strongest and the
richest. In the held elections the six opponents of Aliyev were just
an accompaniment necessary for the normal course of elections. At
the time of the Presidential Elections of Armenia our country could
offer nothing of this sort; that was why the elections had the results
they had. However, this is not what we are going to discuss. The only
problem of the Azerbaijani authorities was the delivery of voters
to the polling stations, a task they managed successfully. There
was no election rush and everything proceeded steadily, properly,
and quite characteristic of Europe. However, they were especially
the European observers that Â"did not noticeÂ" the electoral boycott
imposed by opposition parties. It turns out that no opposition exists
in Azerbaijan. Most probably, it is indeed so. With totalitarianism in
the country, opposition is at best allowed to hold one minor piquet,
after which no one can even think of opposing the authorities.

As a number of media sources inform, the Azerbaijani opposition
that boycotted the elections observed serious cases of law violation
during the voting process of the Presidential Elections. The Center
for Cooperation of Opposition (CCO), whose representatives watched
the election process in different regions of the country, has this
fact mentioned in its latest statement. The Center includes the
Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, the "Musavat" party, the Civil
Development Party, the Liberal Party, and the Public Forum "In the
name of Azerbaijan", who had all boycotted the elections.

As the CCO statement says, in some of the polling stations
ballot-papers were not counted at the presence of observers before
the voting began. In a number of cases ballot-papers were provided
without an ID card. The openings of some ballot boxes did not meet
international norms, which allowed several ballots to be dropped at
a time. At the polling stations of the Divichinskiy and Surakhanskiy
districts the method of "carousel" was used, i.e. one and the same
person voted several times in different polling stations. The method
was actively applied after midday so that by 3:00 p.m. they would
be able to report 50% of participation in the elections, the CCO
observers believe. According to official data 53% of voters had taken
part in the elections by 3:00 p.m. In majority of regions autobuses
and taxis carried voters to polling stations under the control of
executive structures. The malls "Sharg" and "Bollug" were closed
and the sellers were made to go voting. A similar case could also be
observed in the local fair ad in other shopping centers of Ganja.

"At the time of Heydar Aliyev the Azerbaijani budget was about USD
1 billion against today’s USD 10 billion, but all the petrodollars
are now spent on satisfying the appetite of the Aliyev family and
on projects that give the impression of economic development. Ten
years ago TV channels regularly invited opposition representatives
to interviews, whereas today they never do it. There were several
serious oppositional publications ten years ago, while we have only
a couple of them left today. Ten years ago attack on a journalist
was considered a serious offense, while journalists are imprisoned
for their articles today. Journalists have been killed, arrested
and assaulted recently," says Ex-Speaker of Parliament Isa Gambar,
who was a Presidential candidate in 2003 and, according to official
data, got 12% of votes.

For the past years the number of influential economic groups has
decreased, whereas corruption has gained force in Azerbaijan. In the
Transparency International rating Azerbaijan has the 158th standing,
falling behind of its neighbours Georgia (67th standing) and Armenia
(109th standing). Every day the Azeri media "boasts" such headlines as
"Hanged Himself", "Slaughtered", "Committed Suicide", not to mention
hundreds of cases of trafficking and narcobusiness.

The flattered Azerbaijani economy almost fully depends on crude oil,
which formed 97 per cent of national export for the first half of the
current year. Distribution of oil resources is out of the question;
everything sinks in the Aliyev clan. Any kind of democratic reforms
are unfeasible in Azerbaijan.

Be that as it may, Azerbaijan is condemned to govern the clan for
another 5 years and then… Then anyone else from the clan may become
the President of Azerbaijan, for instance Mehriban, the wife of Ilham
Aliyev or Aliyev’s son Heydar II. However, all this is possible in one
case only – if ten years later Azerbaijani oil resources do not expire.

–Boundary_(ID_Qlc9p0X7r2qtg/QaIhLHFQ)–