 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
International Conference
«Conflicts in the Caucasus: History, the Present and Prospects for Resolution»
Baku (Azerbaijan) 22-23 October, 2012 and Tbilisi (Georgia) 25-26 October, 2012
POLITICS
Nazim IMANOV
Nazim Imanov, D.Sc. (Econ.), professor, Editor-in-Chief of
Kavkaz & Globalizatsia (Baku, Azerbaijan)
Introduction
The country leaders and the elite were quite satisfied with 2005; they were even elated about it; the opposition and the analysts close to it, on the other hand, were very negative. There were practically no neutral opinions—political polarization in Azerbaijan has obviously reached a high point. The parliamentary election, the first nationwide campaign after Ilham Aliev was elected president in 2003, determined the year’s political importance. In addition, on the very eve of the election, some of the Western powers, particularly the United States, readjusted their foreign policy priorities. This was followed by deep-cutting political changes in some of the CIS countries, primarily Ukraine and Georgia. This naturally left its imprint on Azerbaijan’s political life.
The Government
Late in March, the State TV and Radio Company was transformed into a private limited liability company, though the state remained the only shareholder. More than that: the state will retain a controlling interest even when some of the assets are privatized. The change in the Company’s legal status, however, agrees with the planned privatization of public property. In future, this may help to withdraw the Company from the government’s monopoly control.
On 30 May, the president signed a document which set up a commission designed to bring the educational system into harmony with contemporary standards. Early in June, a State Commission for Integration into Europe was formed from cabinet members and other top bureaucrats. The Foreign Ministry was instructed to coordinate its activities with the EU.
The Department of Public Property and Privatization of the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) served as a basis for the State Committee of Public Property set up in September. Two new structures—the Ministry of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Emergencies Ministry—were set up in December. They are still being formed, so it is too early to assess their efficiency. However, the very fact of their existence can be described as positive: both structures may help to liberate the occupied territories.
The structural reforms of 2005 were completed with the adoption of a document that created a Mortgage Fund at the National Bank.
In 2005, the public was surprised to learn that in December O. Asadov, who headed the Azersu joint stock company, was elected speaker of the parliament; and V. Aleskerov, head of the Foreign Investments Administration of the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan, was elected deputy speaker. The president was obviously behind these appointments: the New Azerbaijan Party, to which President Aliev was elected chairman on 26 March, is in the majority in the Milli Mejlis (parliament). In mid-April, it amended the Law on Political Parties to allow the president to belong to any of them. The old version of the same article in this document aroused heated debates, since it was claimed to contradict the Constitution, which did not ban the president’s affiliation with political parties.
Early in 2005, a new Military Prosecutor was appointed. There were changes among the upper judiciary as well. In April, the chairmen of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals lost their posts; in December, the chairman of the Economic Court met the same fate. The Supreme Court received a new chairman, while the two other posts remained vacant. The heads of executive structures in over 20 districts (6 of them in the capital) were changed.
Dramatic personnel changes, due to an attempted coup, took place on the eve of the elections and immediately after them. This was what happened. In March, a group of top officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs were found to have committed grave crimes; later, officers of the National Security Ministry (NSM) arrested them. Throughout the year, more people were arrested. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the NSM, and the Ministry of Justice were thoroughly purged. The scandal convinced the opposition that there was no cohesion in the corridors of power and that a revolution was possible in principle.
Toward the end of the year, the country’s leaders were convinced that the threat was real. On 19 October, the president fired the minister of economic development, who was arrested on the spot for being involved in the coup. The next day, the health minister met the same fate, and head of the Presidential Administration also lost his post. Later, head of the State Azerkimia Company was fired (his powers were equal to those of the minister of the chemical industry). All of them were accused of helping the radical opposition seize power by force. Later, all of them were accused of large-scale corruption. All the TV channels demonstrated their wealth to convince the public and create a negative opinion about the arrested people. The effect proved unexpected: the nation saw that the opposition leaders, independent experts, and international organizations were right when they spoke about corruption among the top echelon.
The president, however, kept his team; he was compelled to make most of the new appointments.
The Opposition
The government’s political opponents faced a dilemma: to mobilize the protest electorate, they needed a broad coalition in which the main opposition parties risked being dominated by smaller groups. Decision-making would become inflexible, while squabbles much more frequent. To avoid this, in the middle of March, Musavat, the Popular Front, and the Democratic Party formed a closed bloc called Azadlyg (Freedom). Left out in the cold, the smaller political groups created their own associations and began fighting both the country’s leaders and the large opposition blocs.
The second large opposition bloc, Yeni siyasiat (New Politics), split the protest electorate still further. At the first stage, this bloc, which included former president Aiaz Mutalibov, claimed the role of a new political force. Little by little, however, it became a conglomerate of “has-beens.” On the whole, the two opposition blocs damaged the cause of the political enemies of power: they stirred up false hopes among their supporters.
In the upcoming election campaign, the opposition counted on foreign countries as its main political resource. In February, 30 opposition parties asked the leaders of the United States, the EU countries, Turkey, Ukraine, and Georgia to give a principled assessment of the “anti-democratic regime in Azerbaijan.” The opposition leaders also traveled abroad in search of support for the “democratic changes” associated with their own coming to power. They said the same when talking to Western diplomats and politicians. The American and Norwegian ambassadors were especially active; on 13 April, the parliamentary majority publicly denounced their activities. The opposition was obviously seeking international support at any price. This convinced part of the public that the opposition was pinning its hopes only on foreigners and acting under their orders.
The New Politics bloc failed to develop into an important political structure and disintegrated after the election, at the end of the year. The Azadlyg bloc was torn apart by the rivalry of its members, while its political leadership insisted on the resignation of those responsible for the bloc’s repeated failures.
Some of the parties experienced a lot of problems in the post-election period. The Party of National Independence of Azerbaijan split into two, each side hurling accusations at the other. The leaders of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan headed by R. Guliev, now in political emigration in America,1 were also in crisis.
Main Subjects of the Political Discussion
There were four major subjects.
First, the Nagorno-Karabakh issue became even more pressing, since the Armenian side regularly violated the ceasefire regime: every week the country learned about how the Azeri positions had been shelled and its citizens killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. There were no disagreements over this: all the politicians were convinced that the country should build up its military might and stick to the step-by-step settlement.
Second, the government and the opposition agreed that the country, while preserving good relations with its closest neighbors, should integrate with the West. They disagreed only over Iran: the liberal-minded public objected to wider political and economic contacts with this country; the religious circles, on the other hand, were absolutely satisfied.
Third, the country’s leaders regularly informed the public about the nation’s economic achievements, the world’s fastest GDP growth (26.4 percent), the high direct foreign per capita investments, etc. The structure of these achievements, though, was never subjected to political and economic analysis. Some of the economic novelties, such as redenomination of the manat, aroused no political emotions. Corruption was a politically hot subject, yet it was discussed in a very unprofessional way: the opposition accused the government, while the people on top pointed out that corruption was endemic in many countries.
Finally, a direct dialog between the government and the opposition was indispensable due to the lack of mutual trust. The country’s leaders were sure that the opposition would try to stage a revolution immediately after the election, while the opposition never doubted that the government would falsify the election results. A consensus was obviously impossible, yet the public and international organizations continued insisting on it. Early in May, the government and the opposition met for the first time. After several rounds, however, in June and July the dialog was dropped for lack of results. The sides failed to agree on the places where the opposition could organize rallies. The government and the press managed to agree on the Memorandum on Mutual Understanding and the Conduct Code of the Media During Election Campaigns signed in the middle of July.
Nongovernmental Organizations
Early in 2005, there were about 3,000 NGOs functioning in the country, about 1,000 of them were not registered. The sector has over 4,300 employees. No more than 20 percent of the active NGOs were engaged in the non-political sphere. Few of the rest were absolutely independent; others supported either the government or the opposition.
Early in 2005, the problem of NGOs acting as observers at the upcoming election came to the fore. The government was against it on the grounds that the NGOs funded from abroad might act under foreign pressure. The pro-governmental and pro-opposition NGOs unanimously stated that foreign money did not affect their independence. Ten days before the election, the president asked the parliament to remove the ban from the election laws; this was done two days later.
Traditionally, NGOs are very active in the human rights sphere.2 In June, members of the presidential staff, deputies, and members of human rights organizations set up a Joint Commission to reach a consensus on whether or not citizens of Azerbaijan had been arrested for political reasons. This was an important event. After that, the Commission asked the Council of Europe to postpone its discussions of the political prisoner issue in the hope that the talks might lead to an agreement. This was the first case when the government and human rights activists worked together. In the fall, political passions pushed the Commission into the background. It was decided that its activities should be resumed next year.
The NGOs themselves could not agree on how to use the popular diplomacy potential to resolve the Karabakh issue. Most of the pro-governmental structures were against any contacts with the Armenian side. Being in favor of the use of force, they carried out several actions to prevent Armenian delegations from coming to Azerbaijan for international events.
The Press
International organizations reported that the media were acting under financial pressure, while TV companies found it hard to acquire licenses; pressure was being put on journalists, it was hard to circulate periodicals, and the press was politically biased. The local creative structures, such as the Confederation of Journalists, the RUH Committee for the Protection of Journalists, etc. said the same. The use of police force against journalists during unsanctioned mass actions generated loud echoes, especially the beating up of F. Teymurkhanly of Aina-Zerkalo newspaper on 21 May. The journalists closed ranks to protect his rights; international organizations also interfered. The policeman who abused his power was fired. This created a precedent very illustrative of the country’s democratic development.
Before that, on 2 March, Editor-in-Chief of the Monitor Elmar Guseynov, well known for his scything criticism of the government, was brutally murdered. All political and journalist organizations and NGOs resolutely condemned the murder and described it as a political assassination which crippled the country’s political image, yet they could not agree on the specific political motives behind it.
On 29 August, Public Television was ceremoniously opened. The New TV Company set up by a group of mainly opposition public figures and journalists also caused quite a stir. The project did not progress too far: it failed to get state registration; by the end of the year, New TV was forgotten.
On 21 May, 312 delegates of 133 publications and media companies met for their Third Congress of Journalists.
The national press celebrated its 130th anniversary. On 21 July, shortly before that date, the president issued three decisions: On Rendering Financial Aid to the Media, On Awarding Journalists of Azerbaijan, and On Conferring Honorary Titles on Journalists.
The Main Event of the Year: The Parliamentary Election
The public expected much of this campaign, its expectations were probably inflated by the optimistic statements coming from the West, particularly from the Unites States, the EU, and the Council of Europe. They all reiterated their promises to see that the election would be transparent and fair. The republic’s leaders insisted that the campaign would be democratic, while the opposition was resolved to rule out any falsifications. Independent analysts kept saying that the president did not need falsifications, since a few dozen opposition deputies in the parliament (the opposition could not count on more) would not threaten his power.
Throughout the election campaign the government remained under unprecedented international pressure. The U.S. administration kept repeating that Azerbaijan’s relations with the rest of the world would depend on the election’s democratic nature. Prominent American politicians3 who visited the country in July-August insistently called for a fair election. On 20 July, the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in which it demanded that Azerbaijan hold a fair election; early in October a similar draft was sent to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Late in October this was crowned with a telephone talk between Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney and President Ilham Aliev.
The OSCE, European Union, and PACE kept sending their missions to Baku one after another; co-reporters of the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly regularly visited the country and offered most critical comments. On 25 April, PACE passed a resolution on Azerbaijan which expressed its concern about the election campaign and emphasized that no economic, political, or social problems could be resolved without democratic elections. In June, the European Parliament passed a similar resolution.
On 11 January, the opposition published its draft amendments to the Election Code which changed the principles for forming election commissions of all levels4; the draft touched upon the problems of monitoring, checking the voter lists, and the nomination procedure. The government disagreed while PACE, and the Venetian Commission of the Council of Europe supported the commission-related demands and discussed them with the government, which rejected the demands outright. An equal number of members, the officials argued, would allow the opposition to disrupt the election process and provoke a crisis.
In June, the president initiated a draft law on amendments to the Election Code which contained 43 points mainly of technical nature. On 28 June, it was approved, but the election commissions were formed in the old way. In July, the Venetian Commission and the ODIHR placed a compromise version on the table: one more opposition member to be included in each of the election commissions, but it was rejected both by the government and its political opponents.
On 25 October, the head of state signed a decision On Urgent Measures Related to the Election Campaign and Elections,5 which resolved some of the contradictions and was positively accepted by the public. First, under this decision, the NGOs acquired the right to observe the voting procedure; second, it sanctioned finger marking (a demand put forward by the opposition and international organizations).6 Under this document, the Central Election Commission was obliged to display the voter lists with names and addresses.7
In August, the Central Election Committee restored the Khankendi constituency with the aim of letting the local Armenians take part in the elections; the Armenian community of Karabakh was invited to vote through the Internet.
Exit polls were another novelty. They were organized by PA Government Services (with financial support from the U.S. International Development Agency) in 65 constituencies selected at random. Mitowski International, another American company, carried out an exit poll in all constituencies; its conclusions were called into question because, the opposition argued, the company was hired by the government.
About 18,700 observers (an unprecedented number for Azerbaijan), including 1,689 foreign observers, gathered to monitor the voting procedure. The OSCE had two missions (short- and long-term) of 640 members; Turkey sent a group of deputies, while the CIS was represented by 542 people. Officials of the diplomatic missions accredited in Baku, as well as over 200 foreign journalists accredited at the Central Election Commission were actively involved.
The number of registered deputies was equally unprecedented: by mid-September the list contained 2,062 names. Some of them later removed their names (they were mainly members of the New Azerbaijan Party and its supporters; others were removed by court decisions). There were 1,439 candidates on election day. The New Azerbaijan Party ran using its own list, while other large parties preferred to form coalitions. As a result, the Central Election Commission registered eight party election blocs, not all of them influential enough to affect the situation. Some of the smaller blocs known as pro-governmental received no seats at all.
The campaign was officially launched on 7 September. Much earlier, in the spring, the opposition was engaged in mass protest rallies, its main weapon. At first, the government was against them. Nevertheless, on 21 May, the opposition, resolved to build up tension, organized a large unsanctioned rally in the very center of Baku. It ended in clashes with the police and scores of arrested. The rally which took place on 4 June was sanctioned. It was followed by a series of demonstrations with an approximately identical number of participants and similar slogans. Starting on 18 June, the rallies were orange colored—the hint was obvious. After a while, the public lost interest in the regular rallies. Late in September, the opposition had to build up tension once more with an unsanctioned rally which produced more arrested and wounded. The opposition leaders remained resolved to continue in the same vein. On 1, 9, and 23 October, when the campaign was drawing to an end, it staged similar meetings. Since enthusiasm was obviously lacking, the opposition cut short the series with a promise to resume it after the election.
The government, which had many more possibilities, mainly money, limited itself to concerts. In addition, on 15 June and 4 November, the New Azerbaijan Party organized two rallies with a noticeable entertainment component.
On the whole, the election campaign, so far the most expensive in the country’s history, reached a high pitch: the sides hurled accusations at one another; not infrequently all boundaries of decorum were forgotten, while none of the sides missed an opportunity to charge the opponents with using “black PR.”
The election took place on the appointed date, 6 November; it attracted 42.2 percent of the voters, less than expected.8 The party of power carried the day with 55 seats, 19 seats less than in the previous parliament. Supported by independent deputies, though, it retained its absolute majority. After winning 8 seats, the opposition declared that it would renounce them because the election was not legitimate. On the whole, 65 percent of the Milli Mejlis deputies were new, with only 55 of the former deputies retaining their seats.
On 1 December, the Central Election Commission endorsed the election results. In 10 constituencies, the results were annulled and another round was scheduled.
The early assessments were highly contradictory: while the government spoke about free and democratic elections, the opposition insisted that the results had been falsified. Some of the Western countries and international structures (OSCE, the Helsinki Commission of the U.S., and the International Crisis Group) were very critical, while observer missions from neighboring countries—Turkey, Iran, and Russia—offered positive remarks.
Post-Election Processes
I have already written that the election campaign never left the agenda in 2005. Early in the year, the opposition announced that the election would escalate into a color revolution. The government retaliated with “There will be no revolution.” More statements of the same kind followed. In June, a group of respected and well-known intellectuals warned the public that the election might escalate into post-election clashes and proposed a number of preventive measures. This came too late: the mechanism of confrontation had been already set in motion.
Shortly before the day of election the authorities prevented R. Guliev from returning to the country; they also identified those top officials who supported the opposition and arrested them. A revolution became even less possible. The nation remained indifferent to nearly all the arrests with the exception of that of Academician E. Salaev, who was freed on 16 November, mainly due to public pressure.
On 9 November, the opposition carried out its first “orange rally.” The next day, it announced that the National Resistance Movement had been formed to organize public actions to insist that the election was illegitimate and its results should be annulled. A week later, an All-Republican Conference on annulling the election results was convened; it gathered 500 deputies who were convinced that their rights had been violated. The next two rallies, on 13 and 19 November, went on as expected. It was becoming obvious that the opposition supporters were gradually getting bored and tired. On 26 November, during another rally, the opposition leaders announced that they would remain in the square indefinitely, until they attained victory. The police used force to disperse them. Arrests were resumed, against which the Western embassies, OSCE, PACE, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations expressed their indignation.
The authorities were implacable: mass demonstrations in the usual place in the capital’s center were all banned; the opposition was invited to move its actions to the outskirts. After declining this offer, on 18 December, the opposition tried to stage another unsanctioned mass demonstration and was prevented by force. The opposition had no choice but to drop this practice and put away the orange tents purchased abroad until better times.
On 10 November, to celebrate its victory, the party of power held a rally which ended in fireworks. The New Azerbaijan Party gathered the signatures of candidates who believed that the election had been absolutely democratic. On 21 November, it invited all of them to a republican forum. By the end of November, its list contained over 800 names.
The international community, displeased with the violations registered during the elections, approved of what the president did to remedy them. Some of the local administrators paid with their posts for their “interference in the vote counting procedure,” while the Public Prosecutor’s Office instituted about 20 criminal cases related to violations of the election law.
Conclusion
Despite the heavy domestic and foreign pressure, the government realigned its forces and preserved the parliamentary majority. The opposition failed once more to live up to its promises; it disappointed the protest voters and lost momentum by the end of the year.
The NGOs remained a weak link in the democratization process. They were too biased politically to develop into an independent and influential political factor. Freedom of expression was considerably restricted. The press had obviously progressed, yet its problems (financial dependence, violation of journalists’ rights, and their insufficient professionalism) remained unresolved.
The parliamentary election, the third since the country regained its independence, was carried out on a majority basis. In the past, violations were more flagrant and interference of the law enforcement structures more obvious. In 2005, there were practically no such violations, at least in the capital. However, the end result proved to be much less refined than before: in the past there were structures in the country’s legislature which the public regarded as the real opposition, while the newly elected parliament looked different.
1 Until 1996 he was speaker of the parliament; the protest electorate pinned its revolutionary hopes on him. Back to text
2 Both amnesty decrees the president signed on 20 March and 20 June, 2005 mentioned the addresses of the NGOs. Back to text
3 See: Section “International Affairs”. Back to text
4 The opposition suggested that the election commissions should include an equal number of members representing the government and the opposition. Back to text
5 This was the third presidential election-related decision. The first, of 11 May, dealt with the improvement of the election practices; the second, of 4 July, was of a formal nature and merely fixed the election date. Back to text
6 Four days before the document was signed 500 opposition and independent candidates had addressed the Central Election Commission and the parliament with a demand that finger marking should be introduced. Back to text
7 Before that the lists contained no addresses. T. Davis, the Council of Europe Secretary General, specifically asked the country leaders about this. Back to text
8 The election law does not demand a quorum. Back to text
|
Ïðåäëàãàåì ïîêîïêó ãàç â ÷àñòíûé äîì
|
 |