Has Azerbaijan’s Ruling Elite Found the Answer to Discontent?

By K.A. Cosby

By the time election season is over, Americans are sick and tired of seeing their candidates on advertisements, television shows and debates. Azerbaijan’s presidential election was so efficient and so short (a 23-day campaign period), that it was over before many could even know who all the candidates were.

Many writers have said for months that the election was a foregone conclusion, and the Azerbaijan government proved that the day before the elections when the government accidently released a mobile app with the incumbent Ilham Aliyev winning the race.  In truth, Aliyev did this without ever really campaigning. He never even showed up to the debates—one of which showed a level of bitterness between opposition and government that resulted in the throwing of a bottle at Jamil Hasanli, the candidate from the opposition National Council of Democratic Forces in response to Hasanli’s statements about the corruption and repression of the government and ruling party (Yeni Azerbaijan Partiyasi).

How did the Azerbaijani government win the elections so handedly?

The process took many days than allotted in the campaign period, and its focus was not simply to win an election. The efforts of the Azerbaijani government were to ensure that following the election, angry opposition supporters would not take to the streets of the capital. The regime did this through widespread repression of the media, NGOs and oppositional parties before election season had even begun.

The political, social and economic environment in Azerbaijan seems ripe for protest and the events in the region have provided ample models for opposition forces to follow. Over the past two years, Azerbaijan’s neighbors Russia and Turkey have both had to cope with widespread unrest.  Protesters took to the streets in Russia from the time of the country’s parliamentary elections in 2011 and continued holding demonstrations until Putin’s inauguration as president in May of 2012. During the past summer, Turkey faced protests that arose originally from the planned destruction of a public park in Istanbul. But it quickly spread to include a wide range of complaints against the growing authoritarianism of Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

In the past year, Azerbaijan itself has had a number of localized protests in the regions of Quba and Ismayilli and in the Bina Market in the country’s capital Baku. These protests partly sprung from the increasing economic gap between the ruling elite and the majority of citizens, as well as the waning promise of the economic miracle previously offered by hydrocarbon reserves.  A July 2013 report by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) noted an 11% decline in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas revenue in 2012.  The International Monetary Fund noted in March that “oil dependence and fiscal vulnerabilities are rapidly increasing as evidenced by the rising break-even oil price and oil fund transfers to the budget.”

The internal and international environment weighed heavily on the Aliyev regime, particularly given that Aliyev’s running for election this year has been an so controversial. In 2009 a referendum changed article 101 of the Azerbaijan constitution, effectively removing term limits for the office of president. The change gave Aliyev the legal permission needed to run for a third term. However, in the run-up to the election, the topic became heated following a Youtube post by jurist Erkin Gadirli and the response by Constitutional Court Judge Rovshan Ismayillov. Opposition figures continued to focus on this point in pre-election rallies, calling for the president’s resignation.

To keep such hot-button issues from inspiring an Arab Spring or Gezi Park type uprising, the government undercut the oppositional press’s ability to reach the citizenry.

Investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova was harassed by the repeated posting of videos of her and her partner engaged in intimate relations. The videos were attempts to discredit Ismayilova and her articles investigating corruption in the Aliyev family.  On September 17, the National Security Council arrested Perviz Hashimli, chief editor of Moderator and Bizim Yol, news outlets that investigated allegations of corruption and human rights abuses and criticized President Aliyev.

The arrest of Hashimli is not the first such instance. In 2011, Aliyev’s government was listed among Reporters without Borders’ “Predators of Press Freedom.”

The Azerbaijani government also sought to quiet online criticism through changes to the defamation laws in June, criminalizing posts in blogs and on social networking websites.

To show potential protesters what could happen if there was widespread unrest following the presidential elections, the Azerbaijan government, cracked down on the more localized demonstrations that took place in Quba in 2012, and Ismayilli and Bina Market in early 2013.  In the country’s capital, Baku, attempted protests in March and April by opposition activists were broken up and over 200 demonstrators were detained. The government also arrested five democracy activists for trying to organize through Facebook a nationwide day of protests. 

As further efforts to discourage citizens from participating in anti-government demonstrations, in November 2012 and February 2013, the Azerbaijan government enacted amendments to the laws that greatly increased fines for participating in and advocating unsanctioned demonstrations.

In an effort to keep youth from being involved in post-election protests, the Aliyev regime also ensured that a candidate with the potential to inspire them was not involved in the election. Ilgar Mammadov, presidential hopeful from the REAL (Republican Alternative) movement, was arrested on February 4 for allegedly inciting riots in the town of Ismayilli. Mammadov’s supporters obtained the 41,242 signatures for his candidacy in the election, but the Central Election Commission rejected 4982 as being invalid, which left Mammadov short the signatures needed to be a candidate.

In the coming days it will become apparent whether or not these efforts have borne fruit for Aliyev’s government. Following the elections, the opposition candidate Hasanli noted that the National Council of Democratic Forces have requested permission to hold a demonstration on October 12—a request that has not yet been answered by the government. In the case that the government does not provide permission for the demonstration, Hasanli explains, “We have a variety of methods for resistance.”