Azerbaijan's municipal elections this December could prove a critical test of the country's beleaguered opposition. The poll will be the first popularly contested ballot since the brutal crackdown on opponents of President Ilham Aliyev that followed his election in October 2003.
"These elections are the main rehearsal for our party on the eve of the parliamentary elections in 2005," Ali Kerimli, leader of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan Party (PFAP), told a recent conference held to discuss opposition options for the city elections on December 17. "We must win in most of the municipalities."
Few are more aware of the stakes involved than Ilham Aliyev, whose election as president last year was marred by violence that resulted in the arrests of hundreds of political activists and human rights defenders. [For background see the EurasiaNet Insight archive].
In preparation for this year's city elections, the government's emphasis has been on stability. Most recently, on September 11, the president sided with opposition protestors who objected to the inclusion of Armenia in NATO war games scheduled to take place in Azerbaijan. A week previously, on September 4, Aliyev offered Azerbaijan's opposition parties a series of so-called national reconciliation talks, accompanied by a decree pardoning 266 individuals arrested in last fall's post-election crackdown. "I would be pleased if the opposition accepts this," the news site Zerkalo.az reported the president as saying. "Otherwise, it will be to blame."
So far, the opposition has reacted with caution. While some activists express support for discussion with the government, most maintain that the president has yet to show a firm commitment to democratic elections or reform.
"Personally, I am ready for dialogue, but the authorities must take real steps in this area . . .," Etibar Mammadov, chairman of the Party of National Independence of Azerbaijan, told Zerkalo.
The PFAP's Kerimli stressed that Aliyev's statement was more politics than a "serious intention." "The violation of fundamental freedoms and rights, the falsification of elections, torture of political prisoners -- the list could go on without end -- this is the atmosphere that the authorities have created. If the president is seriously calling for dialogue, then he must change his relationship with his political opponents."
Opposition leaders say their bid for a presence in Azerbaijan's 2735 municipal elections will be the first real opportunity to flex their political muscles before the October 2005 parliamentary elections -- a poll which they hope will enable them to secure those changes. The last such national elections, held in 2000 amid widespread allegations of fraud, resulted in a sweeping defeat for such influential opposition parties as Musavat Democratic Party and the Party of National Independence.
"It seems to me that there are serious changes that will take place in Azerbaijan before the parliamentary elections. Even inside the ruling party people are claiming changes," said Aydin Guliyev, secretary for ideology at the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (DPA). "[The] forthcoming municipal elections have to be a good opportunity to check the opposition's chances [for success]."
Already, changes in campaign strategy are in the works. Rather than emphasize political issues, the PFAP plans to stress socio-economic issues -- a potentially pivotal voting point in oil-rich Azerbaijan where the extreme wealth to be found in Baku coexists with grinding, rural poverty.
Nonetheless, opposition activists concede that their expectations for the elections' results are limited. "I don't expect anything extraordinary from the upcoming municipal elections. We are going to these elections with an old [electoral] law and a passive society," the DPA's Guliyev told EurasiaNet.
Though all of Azerbaijan's opposition parties stand firm on taking part in the ballot, the offices which they seek to fill are widely regarded as little more than sinecures, political observers say. Tiny budgets and a limited legislative code limit city governments' scope for action apart from the central government, according to a May 2004 study by the Elections Monitoring Center (EMC), a Baku-based NGO.
Privately, many western diplomats in Baku say that the vote's lack of international attention and the city governments' lowly status makes the prospect for free and fair elections doubtful.
"Municipalities in Azerbaijan are dead-on-arrival," commented Yusif Salmansoy, an official in the city government of Sumgait, Azerbaijan's third largest city. "From the very beginning, the authorities did everything to prevent the municipalities from becoming independent institutions. The result is that they have accomplished their goal - we do not have any real status, municipalities work unprofessionally and we are completely dependent on executive power in the field."
While the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) maintains that it favors reform of city government, recent budget cuts for municipalities appear to run counter to those assurances. In May, Finance Minister Avaz Alekperov announced a five-fold reduction in the state budget for city governments, from 25 billion ($5 million) to 5 billion manats ($1 million).
YAP favors introducing proportional voting to Azerbaijan's city halls, and puts down complaints about officials' incompetence to a lack of experience.
With those shortcomings in mind, political observers say, voter turnout is not expected to be robust. "We are expecting a passive participation by voters in the municipal elections because during the last five years the municipalities couldn't build effective relations with local communities," said Anar Mammadli, head of the non-governmental organization Elections Monitoring Center."[P]eople have no belief that the authorities are ready to make democratic changes."
Shahin Abbasov is the deputy editor-in-chief of Echo, a Baku daily newspaper, and Ilham Rzayev is the papers political editor.
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