As RFE/RL has revealed David Plouffe, who served as campaign manager for Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election visited Baku on February 8-9, where he met President Ilham Aliyev, parliament speaker Oktay Asadov and delivered a speech at Baku's Gerb (Western) University.
Mr. Plouffe holds no U.S. government positions but controls the remnants of Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign organization, which he built and oversaw. Currently he is employed by AKPD Media and Messaging, a political-consulting firm that works for Democratic candidates and causes. The firm's founder is David Axelrod, who was the chief strategist on Obama's presidential campaign.
Plouffe was invited by the Association for Civil Society Development (ACSD) in Azerbaijan, which RFE describes as a “mouthpiece of the president’s office.”
What is ACDS?
As Kevin Silverstein from Harper's Magazine writes:
As for the ACDSA, its website reveals that the group’s projects include cheerleader-type programs like “Baku is a Hero City” (which reeks of Soviet nostalgia) as well as more explicitly political ones, such as election monitoring and polling. In a poll conducted a few years ago, according to a 2005 New Republic story, the ACDSA found that “only 5.9 percent of those surveyed voted for opposition candidate Isa Gambar” when he ran against Aliyev. Yet, the story said, “official statistics gave Gambar 12 percent of the vote, and some foreign observers said that he garnered as much as 40 percent.” Another poll from the ACDSA found that many Azeris believed there was no corruption in Azerbaijan, even through Transparency International has consistently rated it as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Or take the group’s exit polls for 2004 municipal elections, which found that 99.85 percent of voters felt no pressure while voting. Yet, as the New Republic noted, “the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsored its own poll, with vastly different results. USAID states on its Azerbaijan website that the “municipal elections in December 2004 did not even meet the standard of the Presidential election [which were considered to be fraudulent].” And an international observer who monitored the elections didn’t recall seeing anyone from the group polling stations and “thinks the numbers were made up.”
Washinton lobbists
According to WSJ (February 10, 2009) Mr. Plouffe's appearance in Azerbaijan was arranged by a Washington-based lobbying firm called Bob Lawrence & Associates, according to records and interviews. The company lists Azerbaijan among its clients on its Web site. People with knowledge of the speech said the appearance was arranged by the Lawrence firm through Mr. Plouffe's agent, the Washington Speakers Bureau. A person answering the phone at the Lawrence firm said no one was available for comment. A spokesman for the Washington Speakers Bureau couldn't be reached.
The same group brought forty americans to praise elections in Azerbaijan in October 2008. Bob Lawrence himself is associated with Renessans Associates who brought Mitofsky group for exit-poll in 2005. And here is how Warren Mitofsky described his experience in Baku.
Local Media Barred From Plouffe Speech
RFE/RL. David Plouffe spoke to some 50 people at a university in Baku on February 9 in a meeting closed to the press. Journalists were told to leave the auditorium at Gerb (Western) University before Plouffe gave a speech on the 2008 U.S. presidential election and "the power of democracy."
But, after his speech, an RFE/RL reporter asked Plouffe whether he planned to raise human rights issues with President Aliyev."I'm here as a private citizen, so all I'm doing is talking about elections, and the Internet and democracy, and to talk about our [U.S.] election, and how great it was that so many people participated in it, and that's a lesson I think people can learn."
Run-up to Referendum
Plouffe's visit comes little more than a month before a referendum that seeks to remove the two-term limit on any individual serving in the office of president.Azerbaijani opposition figures say that if the referendum succeeds, Aliyev will become president for life, thus confirming the dynastic rule of the Aliyev family started by his father Heidar.They note the arrest on January 22 of Fakhreddin Abbasli, a senior official of the Musavat opposition party, which was planning a protest against the referendum. Other Azerbaijani activists say they have been intimidated and arrested when asking people to sign a petition against the referendum.Isa Qambar, the head of the opposition Musavat party, told RFE/RL that he doesn't know much about Plouffe's visit. "If he is here to meet the members of the government and to talk about the promotion of civil society, then it would be useful for him also to meet the representatives of the civil groups and political parties, too," Qambar said
What about the White House?
The U.S. Embassy in Baku confirmed Plouffe's trip. Embassy spokesman Terry Davidson told RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service that "Plouffe is coming as a private citizen. The embassy is not in charge of his schedule."
A former U.S. oil executive who worked in Azerbaijan writes The Cable:
"This visit will be represented inside Azerbaijan as a sign of President Obama's personal support for Ilham Aliyev. ...The runup to this referendum has seen the government shut down Radio Liberty, VOA and BBC and also harassing/arresting/beating anyone who tries to campaign against it."
From the gaggle with Robert Gibbs (Obama's press secretary) aboard Air Force One:
Q: Robert, what is -- what is Plouffe doing in Azerbaijan? Is he representing the president in any way, the administration?
MR. GIBBS: No.
Q: What is he -- what's the --
MR. GIBBS: Plouffe is a private citizen in Azerbaijan. I honestly don't -- I don't have his itinerary.
Q: He's not carrying any message or anything, then?
MR. GIBBS: No, he's a private citizen.
Q: Is it weird -- does it send a curious message that he's going to visit one of the world's most famous dictators --
MR. GIBBS: I think what Plouffe is there primarily to do is speak. You'd have to ask David. I don't know.
Q: (Inaudible) -- send e-mails for the DNC, on behalf of the DNC and on behalf of Organizing for America. What's the (inaudible)?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I mean, again, he's a private citizen. He's not there at the behest of, and not delivering a message on behalf of, the president of the United States. If the president had a message for Azerbaijan, he'd pick up the phone. It's a longer flight and a shorter call.
Story of 50 000 USD
WSJ (February 9, 2009) After his visit to Baku, Mr. Plouffe said that he intends to give away the fee he received from a paid private speech he made Monday in the oil-rich but authoritarian nation of Azerbaijan.
The speech was arranged by lobbyists working with a group that has ties to the Azerbaijan government, according to people familiar with the matter. But a close associate of David Plouffe said he only learned of their involvement after he had already embarked for the Caspian Sea nation.
Mr. Plouffe now intends to donate his speaking fee, which the associate said is in the range of $50,000, to groups that advocate democratization in the turbulent post-Soviet states of the region around the Caspian and Caucasus mountain range. Mr. Plouffe also plans to share the contents of the speech with opposition groups.
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