Azerbaijan: Turning Over a New Leaf?

Baku/Brussels, 13 May 2004: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev needs to embrace the democratic process and dismantle autocratic rule. Failure to do so would lead to instability that could spill into the rest of the region and tempt strong neighbours to fill a power vacuum.

The International Crisis Group's latest report, Azerbaijan: Turning Over a New Leaf?*, considers the challenges now facing Azerbaijan and its young and largely untested leader. Strategic interests primarily related to oil reserves muted international expressions of concern about last October's fraud-filled election, which saw Ilham take over from his dying, autocratic father, Heydar. However, if the regime and the international community maintain a disregard for democracy in Azerbaijan, it will likely exacerbate the long-term problems the country faces.

"President Aliyev is in an awkward position", says Nicholas Whyte Director of ICG's Europe Program. "He has to fulfil Western expectations on reforms and democratisation and at the same time satisfy the interests of the ruling elite. Plus, he needs to show that he, not his father's advisers, controls the government".

Azerbaijan's government is a carefully designed autocratic system, which the father and former Soviet-era politburo member began to construct in the late 1960s, with heavy reliance on family and clan members, oil revenues and patronage. The deep scars the country has from its defeat by Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh ten years ago continue to impact political life.

Clearly, democratic change is not going to be simple or quick, but by indicating his desire to move to a more open and democratic system, Ilham Aliyev does give some reason for hope. His best chance is to nurture a new generation of technocratic professionals while steadily dismantling the corrupt patronage network that strangles the political system and keeps the economy overly dependent on a single resource.

The young president has begun by prudently appointing young deputy ministers and other officials to implement reforms aimed at opening and developing the economy. Under international pressure, he has freed several hundred political prisoners. Another welcome step would be a credible investigation of the violence surrounding the 2003 election.

Deeper change, however, is going to mean more difficult choices for Aliyev, who can only find the new allies he needs against the most conservative circles by giving space to a genuine opposition and truly independent media.

"Cracking down on the opposition and harshly repressing religious groups would likely boomerang on Aliyev", says Damien Helly, Caucasus Regional Director for ICG. "Combined with general social and economic discontent, such actions would only fuel a more radical political and religious opposition and unrest in the northern regions".