BAKU, Azerbaijan, 19 August 2003 — They came out in the thousands last weekend, carrying placards and chanting slogans: “Down with the monarchy!’’ “Dismiss the president!’’ Indeed, hardly a day goes by in this oil capital on the Caspian Sea without a new demonstration against ailing President Heydar Aliyev and his son Ilham, the newly appointed prime minister.
But the crowds of recent days — some broken up by club-wielding police — are not the throngs that surged through Baku’s streets a dozen years ago in the chaos of post-Soviet independence. This time, independent observers here say, the protesters have little chance of achieving their goal: Blocking the expected transfer of power from father to son. Even many of the placard carriers say they anticipate nothing but defeat in the Oct. 15 presidential election, in which both Aliyevs, for the moment, are officially registered as candidates.
It’s an increasingly common reality of politics in former Soviet republics such as Azerbaijan — the public forms of democracy, such as organized political parties and a critical press, are tolerated, but the opposition does not constitute a genuine threat able to topple the existing powers.
In some former Soviet republics in Central Asia, such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, even the symbolic attributes of democracy are missing; elsewhere the opposition is allowed to exist but is too weak to win. Outside the Westernized Baltic states, an opposition candidate has replaced an incumbent leader in a former republic only once since 1994 — and that was when the Communists made a comeback in tiny Moldova three years ago.
In Azerbaijan, the opposition’s dim prospects are at least partially the result of what Western diplomats and other observers call a rigged election process. The country has held two presidential and two parliamentary contests in the last decade, but none was judged free or fair by international monitors. “Perhaps the least-sophisticated fraud I have ever seen,’’ commented Lorne W. Craner, an assistant US secretary of state, speaking at a congressional hearing last month about a 1998 presidential election.
In part, it’s because the opposition — an unlikely coalition of 10 major and dozens of minor parties linked mostly by their desire to oust Aliyev — is too divided to coalesce behind a single candidate. And in part, it’s because Aliyev, a Soviet Politburo veteran who seized power in a 1993 coup, may be popular enough to win a fair election outright, as his allies claim.
Few analysts expect the October election to be dramatically cleaner than its predecessors, especially given the uncertainty about whether the president or his son will be the establishment candidate. “The problem is the inertia of the system and in-built habits that you cannot easily overcome,’’ said a Western diplomat who is closely monitoring the campaign. “The first two (presidential) elections here were not good, to say the least, and it’s very difficult to break this pattern even if you have the clear political will. And now, with Heydar Aliyev’s future uncertain, it’s far more difficult to convey political will.’’
Developments so far seem to support that view. The Central Elections Commission is dominated by Aliyev’s party, which effectively controls two-thirds of the seats. It has already refused to register three presidential candidates — two of them exiles with a substantial political following in Azerbaijan.
“They will never allow the opposition to win,’’ said Eldar Namazov, a former Aliyev aide who was denied registration as an independent candidate. “In this circumstance, the opposition can only come to power through destabilization.’’
At the top, there is little public discussion of the requirements of democracy beyond what has been largely a formality, the holding of elections. “It’s clear now that Heydar Aliyev has anointed his successor, and that it’s Ilham Aliyev. The succession process is under way,’’ said Ali Hasanov, a senior presidential adviser. In an interview, Ilham Aliyev promised that these elections would be free and fair. But his supporters say that won’t change the outcome: They say they’re going to win anyway.
“The opposition in this country is not a real threat either to Ilham Aliyev or to Heydar Aliyev,’’ said Elshad Nassirov, a state oil executive and former representative to the United Nations. “The opposition in Azerbaijan makes its living being opposed to someone. They have no program. They’re struggling among each other for who will be nominated, but they can never come to an understanding.’’
This view of the opposition is also widely held by Western businessmen working here, who have supported Aliyev as the guarantor of stability necessary to do business in a strategically located country rich in oil and gas deposits. “The other political parties have no vision except getting power,’’ said one Westerner who has worked here for years. “The demonstrations right now are about as big as they can muster.’’
A month ago, the fractured opposition leaders spent three hours behind closed doors in the office of Ali Kerimli, chairman of the Popular Front Party, in a vain effort to unite. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t coordinate enough to come up with a single candidate,’’ Kerimli said. “In the last 10 years without a single democratic election, there’s no real objective information’’ about the popularity of different candidates and parties. So multiple candidates enter the race, each making the claim of wide voter appeal.
But he argued that the disarray among the president’s opponents was not their most serious obstacle.
