Article
Thomas de Waal, Areg Kochinyan, Zaur Shiriyev
{
"authors": [
"Thomas de Waal"
],
"type": "commentary",
"centerAffiliationAll": "",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"Carnegie Europe",
"Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center"
],
"collections": [],
"englishNewsletterAll": "",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie Europe",
"programAffiliation": "",
"programs": [],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"Caucasus",
"Azerbaijan"
],
"topics": [
"Political Reform"
]
}
Source: Getty
Commentary
Azerbaijan: The Day After
Everyone actually knows the result of Azerbaijan’s presidential election—that President Ilham Aliyev will be elected for a third term. But today’s vote is most important as a test on the state of the country’s opposition.
Published on Oct 9, 2013
Azerbaijan votes today in a curious election.
It is one of those post-Soviet elections where, despite a lot of polling-day fury and a multiplicity of candidates, everyone actually knows the result in advance—that President Ilham Aliyev will be elected for a third term.
So the day after will be more important. In a sense today’s vote is most important as a test on the state of the country’s opposition.
Azerbaijan’s opposition has been pretty hopeless for two decades. Its two main parties, the Popular Front of Azerbaijan and Musavat, shared power and governed the country briefly before President Abulfaz Elchibey’s rule collapsed in 1993. Since then, they have lived off nostalgia for this glorious moment in their past, squabbled amongst themselves, and for the most part failed to adapt to Azerbaijan’s dramatic rise as an oil and gas power. As a rule, their positions on the Karabakh conflict with Armenia have been even more hardline than those of the government.
This time for once the opposition in the shape of the newly-formed National Council of Democratic Forces has a single unified candidate, the historian Jamil Hasanli. By all reports, Hasanli has been quite effective, using whatever chances he can to ram home a message about government corruption.
Those chances are still limited. The opposition has been excluded from holding public meetings in central Baku for many years. The media is heavily weighted toward the government and independent outlets such as Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani Service come under pressure. Many leading opposition figures have been put in jail this year, including Ilgar Mammadov, a presidential candidate.
You could say that the election has come a year or so too early for the opposition. There is certainly discontent in Azerbaijani society, chiefly over corruption and the massive inequalities of wealth in society. But it is not strongly focused and President Ilham Aliyev appears to have retained his popularity with much of the public.
In that sense, the Azerbaijani opposition’s aim is not to win the poll but to put on a show of strength. Although it cannot win the vote, it will hope to stage enough of a protest afterwards to make a noise.
Which leads to another question for the day after: will that noise be heard? Or to put it another way, can President Aliyev learn to live with an opposition?
About the Author
Thomas de Waal
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Europe
De Waal is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.
- Rewiring the South Caucasus: TRIPP and the New Geopolitics of Connectivity
- Europolis, Where Europe EndsCommentary
Thomas de Waal
Recent Work
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center
- The Gulf Conflict and the South CaucasusCommentary
In an interview, Sergei Melkonian discusses Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s careful balancing act among the United States, Israel, and Iran.
Armenak Tokmajyan
- Baku Proceeds With Caution as Ethnic Azeris Join Protests in Neighboring IranCommentary
Baku may allow radical nationalists to publicly discuss “reunification” with Azeri Iranians, but the president and key officials prefer not to comment publicly on the protests in Iran.
Bashir Kitachaev
- Iran’s Woes Aren’t Only DomesticCommentary
The country’s leadership is increasingly uneasy about multiple challenges from the Levant to the South Caucasus.
Armenak Tokmajyan
- Navigating Danger: Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Risk ReturningCommentary
A humanitarian crisis in Lebanon deepens, and Syrian refugees face a perilous choice: remain in a war-torn environment or return to Syria where they risk encountering significant dangers and discrimination. There are significant challenges and risks to their search for safety in Syria.
Haid Haid
- Borders Without a Nation: Syria, Outside Powers, and Open-Ended InstabilityPaper
In Syria’s border regions, changes in demographics, economics, and security mean that an inter-Syrian peace process will require consensus among main regional powers that Syria must remain united, that no one side can be victorious, and that perennial instability threatens the region.
Kheder Khaddour, Armenak Tokmajyan
