Azerbaijan: a week ahead of presidential elections

Mikhail Belyaev exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

In a week's time, Azerbaijan will hold presidential elections. Ten registered candidates compete for the top position. The current president Ilham Aliyev (Eni Azerbaijan) will compete with independent candidate Zahid Orudzh, the chairman of the party Umid Igbal Agazade, a representative of the party Adalyat Ilyas Ismailov, the chairman of the party Modern Musavat Khafiz Hadzhiyev, the chairman of the Party of Peoples Revival Faradzh Guliyev, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan Sardar Mamedov (Dzhalaloglu), the chairman of the Social-Democratic Party of Azerbaijan Araz Alizade, the chairman of the Party of the United Peoples Front of Azerbaijan Gudrat Hasanguliyev, and Jamil Gasanly from the initiative group of voters the National Council of Democratic Forces.

No one should expect y ansurprises from the elections. The current president of the country is doubtless the favourite in the election race. Even the brightest critics of the government admit this. Skillfully playing the energy card of TAP and TANAP pipelines and gaining silent support of the West without threatening traditional ties with Russia, Ilham Aliyev protected himself from any significant interference into the election process by foreign forces which are able to influence stability in the country. The opposition’s voyages over the ocean didn’t bring any support to them – either financial or even rhetorical.

The international society has already chosen its partner for the next five years and has no intention of spoiling future cooperation with Baku. At the same time, the internal political rating of Ilham Aliyev, according to various social polls, doesn’t go below 80%.

It would be easy to defeat political rivals for Aliyev in Azerbaijan: there are almost no new faces in the current opposition. In general we see old well-known political forces which are presented by a new configuration of the National Council of Democratic Forces.

Why does Ilham Aliyev have no alternatives, despite the formal presence of alternatives represented by nine candidates? There are several reasons for this of objective and subjective character. The Azerbaijanis who got tired of political crises of the early 1990s and eliminated at first Ayaz Metalibov and then Abulfaz Elchibei entrusted their country in 1993 to the experience and successful politician and manager, Heydar Aliyev. In 10 years his son Ilham Aliyev replaced his father; and he is presented as a successor of Heydar Aliyev’s policy. Multibillion revenues from oil and gas provided by contracts signed in Heydar Aliyev’s times guaranteed stability of Ilham Aliyev’s power which easily suppressed attempts to conduct “orange revolutions” in 2003 and 2005.

Unlike his rivals, Ilham Aliyev has something to present to the electorate. He can present certain results of his work – the constant economic growth (in 2013 the IMF predicts the growth of Azerbaijani GDP by 4.1%; in 2014 – by 5.8%) under a low inflation (about 5%), the growth of people’s incomes, filling monetary reserves of the republic and establishing of the stabilizing oil fund, struggle against bureaucracy and corruption, implementation of major investment projects, an important role of the country in the European energy policy. We shouldn’t forget about vast administrative and intellectual resources of the ruling party. Finally, the current authorities have a detailed plan of state development to 2020.

At the same time the opponents of Aliyev haven’t presented any program to the population, but for groundless criticism of the authorities. They have no proposals on their own strategy of the country’s development. It seems that programs won’t appear because only a week remains before the elections. The united opposition lost time in attempts to define their candidate and didn’t develop any new proposals. If the country has some protest electorate, leaders of the united opposition failed to involve it into their election campaign. It seems the best political present for the current government.