Viktoria Panfilova, “NG” observer, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The fifth session of the ruling party New Azerbaijan, which took place last week, dispelled expectations of a possible sensation about the participation of President Ilham Aliyev in the presidential elections on October 16th, 2013.
Of course, it was difficult to imagine that the leader of Azerbaijan would make a break for one presidential term. This “legend” was created by representatives of top circles, who made ambiguous statements like: everything is possible. Such dim notes on the continuation of Ilham Aliyev’s presidency befogged the situation; but the fog couldn’t hide the question on amendments to the Constitution, which give an opportunity to become the president many times.
The ruling party confirmed expectations of the majority of Azerbaijan’s population and experts – Ilham Aliyev will fight for the victory and a third presidential term. Most probably, he will succeed in this. There are no obstacles for achieving the success, at least at the moment. The international society didn’t show special dissatisfaction. It is difficult to imagine that the world political centers “are not aware of the situation,” so it is naïve to expect that power in Azerbaijan will change on October 16th.
They clearly understand that Ilham Aliyev will maintain his position. They agree with this because being the president, he became a symbol of stability of the Caspian state; he is a strong political player and reliable predictable partner in negotiations of any level. At the same time, the main trump of the current head of the state is that the majority of population trusts him. And it cuts the ground from under critics’ feet. The trust level is so high that Aliyev’s figure seems to have no alternatives at the current stage of Azerbaijan’s development.
Of course, he will have formal rivals. One who thinks that other politicians have no ambitions doesn’t know the South Caucasus at all. 10 people want to try themselves in the presidential campaign.
The most “dangerous” rival of Aliyev in the coming elections seems to be the well-known screenwriter Rustam Ibrahimbekov. His candidacy from the National Council of Democratic Forces (NCDF) was announced at a conference of the opposition alliance, which took place parallel to New Azerbaijan Party’s session.
NCDF is an alliance of only a part of opposition movements in Azerbaijan. Most probably the rest of the opposition forces will present their applications for presidency to the Central Election Committee separately. The history of the post-Soviet space shows that under this scenario only the authorities can win – voices of the protest electorate will disperse between rivals of the power candidate, weaken competition and turn the election process into a democratic background for the favourite’s victory. The main intrigue is how many votes he will gain.
However, considering a certain growth of protest opinions in Azerbaijan, his popularity and international reputation of Rustam Ibrahimbekov, we can predict that other opposition candidates will got tiny numbers of votes, while he will gain rather high percentage of votes – it will satisfy devotees of democratic values in the West. It has happened in one of post-Soviet countries recently.
At the same time, certain Azerbaijani circles call participation of Rustam Ibrahimbekov in the presidential elections “the Russian project” which supposedly was initiated by the Azerbaijanis living in Russia and “miffed with” Baku. In fact it is clear that there is no “Moscow’s hand” in political ambitions of Ibrahimbekov. The Azerbaijanis living in Russia need stability in their historic motherland, first of all. Moreover, the absurd propaganda that Rustam Ibrahimbekov is “the Kremlin’s candidate” has paled into insignificance already. The recent contacts of political officials of Russia and Azerbaijan have confirmed that both countries are still strategic partners and have no intention to interfere into internal political processes of each other.
The political scientist Ilgar Velizade is one of those who are sure that Ilham Aliyev has no real competitors. “There are no candidates who could compete with Aliyev, according to the political weight, the resource capacities, and popularity,” he stated. He thinks that the old political deck will be shuffled once again. “All President’s rivals are projects which accompany the election campaign. After the elections they always lose acuteness and leave the stage,” Velizade said.
The expected victory of Ilham Aliyev doesn’t require the cloudless third presidential term. There will be a lot of difficulties for the Azerbaijani leader. The opposition is improving; religious groups are becoming stronger; corruption still exists. However, the main difficulties are connected with the international arena. first of all, it concerns the difficult Karabakh problem which is far away from settlement. The current processes in Turkey cannot be ignored – their influence on the socio-political life of Azerbaijan will depend on a scenario of their development. Relations with Iran are important as well.
