Azerbaijan – swimming in the empty pool

Extract from an published paper on the Democratization trends in the South Caucasus through the prism of the presidential elections in 2008:

Chapter II: Azerbaijan - swimming in the empty pool

On December 16, 2008 the ruling “New Azerbaijan Party” (YAP), whose Chairman is the current president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, sounded its proposal to scrap the limit on the presidential term, arguing that “the fact is that presidency of one person more than twice is a breach of law. This version cannot give chance to electors to state their position”. According to the Deputy Chairman of YAP, Executive Secretary of the Party Ali Ahmadov if the condition was not established for a person, who people wanted to elect, they would be obliged to vote for unwished person.

Supporters of this move like to make references to the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt who served four consequent presidential terms. However, their opponents, like Ali Kerimli, accuse authorities in attempt to “legalize monarchy” and follow the example of George Washington as ” Presidential term limits were created to prevent politicians from clinging to power and to place system-based procedure above personality-driven politics. But it seems the impulse of many world leaders to view themselves as indispensable remains strong. Azerbaijan is just the latest in a long line of countries”. In a recent article, which sparked controversy in Azerbaijan, Armenian political analyst David Babayan describes the curent trends in Azerbaijan as the “smooth transition into the Azerbaijani khanate”, which used to be a form of rule in Azerbaijan till 19th century, when the region become a part of the Russian empire.

Indeed, former president of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev has been proclaimed as a national leader. The day he returned from Nakhchivan to Baku in 1993 to rule the country (June 15) is an official holiday called National Salvation Day, his birthday on May 10 is celebrated as Flower Festival, July 14 is celebrated as the day when Heydar Aliyev was elected as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan Communist Party in 1969. Ilham Aliyev “inharited” presidency from his father Heydar Aliyev in elections on October 15 2003, which were marked as rigged both by international observers and opposition, causing massive protest rallies, which were dispersed by police with five protestors being killed. Parliamentarian elections on November 6, 2005 were also marked by fraud and violence.

Since then there has been no dialogue between government and opposition, despite the several attempts and mediation efforts from the side of international community, including OSCE, which has proposed several important amendments to the Election Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan like configuring of the Central Election Commission and lower-level commissions to ensure they enjoy public confidence, in particular the trust of those running for office as previously they were controlled by the ruling New Azerbaijan Party. On June 2, 2008 the Parliament of Azerbaijan has adopted new amendments to the Election Code without addressing this issue, which was “one area of concern” of the OSCE Venice Commission. Another “areas of concern” was reduction of the official election campaign (media and voter agitation period) by 50% from 60 days to 28 and removal of the legal obligation of State-funded AzTV to provide equal campaign conditions and prohibited it from conducting any form of campaign.

Television in Azerbaijan remains the most important news disseminator and that is controlled, either by the owners who have allegiance to the establishment or by local authorities, but state-funded AzTV covering almost the entire country. According to the leader of the opposition Musavat Party Isa Gambar, “restrictions on access to TV mean that authorities, who are conducting their propaganda 24 hours a day during the whole year, are afraid that the opposition would have a few hours for contact with voters.”

All major opposition parties condemned the amendments and decided to boycott the presidential elections to be held on October 15, 2008, citing “continued persecution of the opposition, a lack of normal and free conditions for holding an election and restrictions on campaigning.” As a result of this decision, these elections resembled more like a “referendum” on trust to the incumbent president Ilham Aliyev as he faced no real competitors as some of them (like leader of Muasir Musavat Party Hafiz Hajiyev, who in his campaign criticised more the “entourage” of the president, but not himself) even had portraits of the incumbent president and their competitor Ilham Aliyev.



OSCE International Election Observation Mission in its preliminary statement assesses the elections “with their compliance with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections”, however pointing in its preliminary conclusions that “elections marked considerable progress toward meeting OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and other international standards but did not meet all commitments.” However, there are several important facts on the election process to be mentioned (according to the IEOM Report, October 16, 2008):

• On October 3, 2008 according to the stipulation of the Law on Freedom of Assembly Azerbaijan’s Cabinet of Ministers approved list of places prohibited for mass actions, which consists only from administrative buildings occupied by the central, regional and city executive powers. Moreover, the Law states that “The number of picketers shall not be more than 50 persons and they shall not be located closer than 10 meters to the entrance of a picketed object, shall not make obstacles for entry and exit into the picketed object and shall not use amplifiers above 10 watt;”
• While the law states that the relevant executive bodies shall provide special venues for conducting rallies and shall issue a list of “proposed places” from which the organizers of such rallies “can choose”. The Baku City authorities interpreted it as an exclusive list and denied requests of the opposition group “Joint Front of Democratic Forces” to hold rallies in the centre of the city in places which were not included in the list drawn up by the authorities;
• The election process was carried out in a peaceful manner, but was characterized by a lack of robust competition and of vibrant political discourse facilitated by media, and thus did not reflect all the principles of a meaningful and pluralistic democratic elections;
• Election commissions were appointed under a politically contentious formula;
• The incumbent president faced a field of candidates who commanded little apparent public support. Most of the public was not aware of any campaigning by other candidates nor seemed aware that any candidate aside from Ilham Aliyev was running;
• Although the incumbent president declared his intention not to campaign personally, he extensively toured the country in his official capacity, inaugurating new factories, roads, schools, sport complexes, museums and an airport, visiting military installations but also awarding flats to veterans. These visits, which received wide media coverage, were associated with campaign activities by the media and the electorate. This blurring of the distinction between the regular activities of the incumbent and his campaign created unequal campaigning opportunities;
• People had been obliged to attend rallies organised by the YAP. In some cases law-enforcement bodies and organizers prevented participants from leaving rallies at their convenience;
• There was limited coverage of the campaign in the news programme and most of the broadcasters (state-funded and private) with national outreach devoted the bulk of their news coverage to the incumbent president;
• As opposition called people to boycott the elections thus trying to achieve low voter turnout, which will mean lack of legitimacy for Ilham Aliyev, authorities organised special schemes of brining people to the polling stations (“pyramidal networks of persons responsible for the group of voters organised by local authorities and/or election commissions, and were in some cases linked to the YAP”).

According to the CEC results, Ilham Aliyev got 87, 34% of votes with 75, 64% voter turnout with all the candidates conceding their defeat. While ruling party (YAP) stated that this election was “a triumph of democracy”, Iranian election monitors did not notice any violations, GUAM Secretary General Valeri Chechelashvili stated that presidential elections were democratic, CIS Observation Mission was of the same opinion (“the elections were legitimate, open and transparent”), but head of the mission Mikhail Krotov stated that Azerbaijan can even teach democracy to other countries and offered to hold an international workshop in Baku for learning Azerbaijani election experience.

Statements of European observers were also mainly positive about the election process:

• “Elections in Azerbaijan are like the elections in all European countries” (Solomon Passy, former OSCE Chairman, former Bulgarian Foreign Minister and candidate for the NATO Secretary general);
• “Elections meeting international norms were held in Azerbaijan and European Parliament observers have not recorded any breach of law” (Kristina Ojuland, Vice Speaker of the Parliament of Estonia)

Only Andres Herkel, the head of the Council of Europe's parliamentary delegation, said openly that the election was "a very good swimming exercise, but unfortunately, it's an empty pool." Indeed, despite the technically smoothly conducted elections, the election process is not only about Election Day, but is the whole process, including election campaign and appropriate legislation to conduct free and fair elections, which was not the case in Azerbaijan.

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P.S.:  The Briefing: Postmortem Of The Azerbaijani Election RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service Director Kenan Aliyev discusses this week's presidential election in Azerbaijan, which he characterized as rigged and without any meaningful opposition.

PHOTOS: Courtesy of Marcin Lapczyncki