Elections in Azerbaijan. Part 3

The issue that all Azerbaijani journalists interested in the
parliamentary elections in the country are now discussing is whether
the ambitions of the opposition leaders can prevent two influential
political parties of Azerbaijan from amalgamation. In any case, the
campaign that started on September 4th will probably finish with the
victory of the pro-government forces.

However, it would be incorrect to claim that the will elections will
see a lack of free choice. It would be better to say that on September
7th a new referendum will take place, a referendum that will show
whether the citizens approve the current policies and President Ilham
Aliyev.

Almost the same situation occurred during the elections of 2005, even
though then the political heat was extreme due to the factor of the
foreign influence. In 2005 Azerbaijan was on the verge of some kind of
a "colour revolution". Nothing of this kind is threatening the
political stability of the country now.

President Medvedev's visit to Baku has shown the position of Russia
towards the present day Azerbaijani elite. The United States is also
interested in the political stability in the region, no matter what
does the recent incident with the new ambassador to Baku means. The
same with Turkey and the European Union.

Due to the favorable situation in the sphere of international policy,
the Azerbaijani authorities can concentrate on the issues of their own
image. Public relations have to be improved and it means that
officials should adopt a new media policy, stop using administrative
resources during elections and conduct fairer campaign. Azerbaijani
authorities keep in touch with the Minsk Group of OSCE and it's highly
probable that their cooperation will be quite successful. Being very
careful in their appraisal highly-ranked officials of the OSCE admit
that Azerbaijani society is becoming more democratic.

The only problem is that election committees are formed mainly by the
representatives of the New Azerbaijani Party. This fact is likely to
spoil the international attitude to the campaign. This seems to be the
only problem.

Alexey Vlasov. Exclusively for VK.