Masaryk university

5.2 Political developments since 2003

Transition of power from Heydar Aliyev to his son Ilham Aliyev came along with dubious actions in favour of the latter²⁴ and were followed by violent suppression of post-election protest in October 2003. Ilham Aliyev, unlike his father who had public support when coming to power and a rich political profile behind him since his career in Soviet KGB, had to prove his skills in governing the country. He slightly changed the governing style by completing the fusion of YAP and presidential administration into a sole more solid and powerful machine where Ramiz Mehdiyev²⁵ performs a leading role. Generally, political elite in Azerbaijan acquired many of the characteristics inherent to soviet and Russian elitism with elements of political clientilism and patronage networks. According to Boonstra (Youngs 2008: 126), political methods practiced in the country have many elements in common with Russia-fashioned “managed democracy”.

Performance of the government in the areas of democracy, human rights and freedoms has been in gradual but steady decline since 2003. There have been 2 presidential and 2 parliamentary elections but neither of them introduced significant improvements in the areas under consideration. Apart from that, Azerbaijani leadership carried out several actions that notably limited freedom of speech and extended the ground for its misbehaviour and despotism. Meanwhile, the government also took out some actions towards democratization. But in essence, these activities concerned the formal aspects of political life and yet the illusion of democracy in Azerbaijan prospered. The ratings calculated by Freedom House and displaying the country’s “democracy score” from 2005-2014 prove this regress.

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Democracy score	5.86	5.93	6.00	6.00	6.25	6.39	6.46	6.57	6.64	6.68

Freedom House. Nations in Transit Ratings and Averaged Scores.²⁶

After dubious events in 2003 Ilham Aliyev’s power was strengthened by 2005 parliamentary elections where YAP secured highest number of seats. Ilham Aliyev issued 2 decrees which should have improved the electoral process. The first decree instructed local authorities to ensure a free access to media for all parties and to take measure to ensure freedom of assembly. In fact, adoption of the law on public television and its launch in August 2005 had been praised by Council of Europe and it was expected that Public TV would improve media environment which was particularly important in pre-election time. However, OSCE monitoring mission’s observations concluded that the broadcasts usually had biased tone in regard to opposition parties (OSCE/ODIHR Final Report, Parliamentary Elections in Azerbaijan 6 November 2005, 16). Another largest TV channel ANS felt pressure due to its expiring license issue which had not been renewed by National TV and Radio Council and led to its shutdown for one month. Some positive innovations such as use of transparent ballot boxes and phosphoric ink had been appreciated by OSCE. But this technical improvements, however, were overshadowed by massive abuses and irregularities during the Election Day (OSCE/ODIHR Final Report, Parliamentary Elections in Azerbaijan 6 November 2005). Political environment in Azerbaijan was screwed up by the murder of Elmar Huseynov, the editor-in-chief of the opposition weekly “Monitor” in March 2005. Authorities failed to bring the murders to justice, thus, fuelling opposition accusations of the government’s alleged involvement.

In 2006 Azerbaijan had to repeat municipal elections held initially in 2004. Council of Europe harshly criticized previous elections on the grounds of serious violations. The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities threatened to suspend the delegation of Azerbaijan if the latter failed to conduct rerun by the end of 2006 (Council of Europe, 2006). In the area of media, opposition media came across with growing obstacles in the forms of lawsuits against alleged tax evasion cases and other financial matters. Particularly “Azadliq” newspaper was harmed by ongoing investigations and persecutions. (Freedom House, Nations in transits, Azerbaijan 2007). ANS TV after several warnings from NTRC followed by one month shutdown resumed its broadcasting in April 2007 by renewing license. But it is argued that tense relations with NTRC consequently resulted in self-censorship in the channel in order to avoid further disputes with government (IREX, 2013 Index: 145). Imprisonment of an investigative journalist Eynulla Fatullayev in the same year caused massive international reaction. Consequently the case was passed over to ECtHR which ruled out the convictions of national court. However, he was charged on drug possession and was released only in 2011 after being pardoned by President (Indexcensorship.org 2011). His post-jail journalistic activity also indicates the success of co-optive methods employed by the government in regard to political critics²⁷.

Presidential elections in 2008 were boycotted by main opposition bloc. However, the elections took place among 7 candidates including Ilham Aliyev. Despite several faults OSCE/ODIHR evaluated election as a “considerable progress towards meeting OSCE commitments and other international standards”. Yet the elections “did not reflect some of the principles necessary for a meaningful and pluralistic democratic election” due to remaining “restrictive media environment” and “lack of vibrant political discourse” (OSCE/ODIHR Election observation, Mission Final Report 2008: 1). Civil society environment is peculiar with new phenomena called “government organized NGOs” (GONGOs). Government acts selectively when distributing support via state fund for NGOs. Also such support makes governmental control over NGOs more plausible (Freedom House, Nations in Transit Azerbaijan 2009). The March 2009 Constitutional referendum approved amendments among which the one eliminating presidential term limits paved way to Ilham Aliyev’s unlimited presidency. The referendum faced criticism of Venice Commission: “…the removal of the two-term limit of the President reinforces his already strong position and does not follow European practice.” (European Commission for democracy through law 2009: 10). Moreover, Azerbaijan’s NGO legislation was amended in 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2014. These amendments, according to Venice Commission, created a set of administrative obstacles and deprived NGOs of funding sources, particularly external donators (European Commission for democracy through law 2014: 12, 15).

Political life was abundant with heated events in 2012. Baku was hosting Eurovision Song Contest and for the government it was an opportunity for showing off its reputation and potential. However, civil society, NGOs and human right activists tried to attract international attention to infringements happening in the country, particularly caused by massive demolition and resettlement of people from the venue vicinity. The government responded by tough crackdown and wide-scale arrests ignoring international outcry (Freedom House, Nations in Transit Azerbaijan, 2013). Yet, nobody had doubt that Ilham Aliyev will secure third consecutive victory in 2013 presidential election. But OSCE report was less optimistic this time: “[election] was undermined by limitations on freedoms of expression, assembly and association. Continued allegations of candidate and voter intimidation and restrictive media environment marred the campaign.” (OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission. Final Report 2013: 1). At the same time joint delegation of European Parliament and PACE issued a controversial statement: “overall around election day we have observed a free, fair and transparent election process” (Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe 2013). Pre-election time saw unauthorized peaceful anti-governmental protests which were forcibly suppressed by police and ended up with arrests of activists. Western funded Free Thought University was closed. Journalists continued to be persecuted, mainly on charges of defamation and hooliganism (Freedom House, Nations in Transit Azerbaijan 2014). Limitations on freedom of expression expanded in 2014. An investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova was arrested in December. (Azadliq Radiosu 2014). Finally, after unexpected raids authorities shut down Baku Bureau of Radio Free Europe funded by the US government.

Trying to explain the peculiarities of Azerbaijani leadership and its phoney democratisation policy authors point out various contributing factors. Undoubtedly, the first reason is unprecedented oil production revenues. We have already mentioned this point before. When observing the hardening policy of the government on par with oil production timeline we can trace correlation in between. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan became fully operational in 2006 and the same year GDP growth reached 34.5% (IMF, WEO 2014). Gradually, Azerbaijan boosted gas production and export, thus becoming Europe’s important energy supplier. Oil profits in 2013 reached 17bn dollars, 11bn of which were transferred to state budget (İllik hesabat 2013). Such income allows the government to overcome social problems. By the same token, raising importance of the country in energy market and growing investments into the economy calls out allegations that partners and investors in the West are indifferent to internal issues as long as stability ensures steady revenues for both. Several authors (Simao 2012, Caspersen 2012) see Karabakh problem as a pretext used by government and political groups of both countries for internal political gains. There is a point of view which argues that conflict resolution requires a strong leader who can force others to agree to peace (Caspersen 2012: 132). This argument is thought to explain hardening line of Ilham Aliyev after he came to power. Politicians in Azerbaijan also tend to use Karabakh conflict to justify restrictive measures. Blaming internal chaos in the defeat in 1990s war Azerbaijani elite argues for maintaining stability in the country by all means (Musabeyov 2006). Recent amendment into constitution in 2009 supports this hypothesis.²⁸ Finally, Huseynov (2009) considers geopolitical context of the region to be important factor. Situated at the intersection of American, Russian, European and regional powers’ interests, South Caucasus is a home for 3 frozen conflicts which may turn to active warfare if political turbulence wakes. Therefore, external powers and regional governments bargain these sensitive issues to avoid extreme developments.