EurasiaNet Civil Society - New Television Channels Could Shake Up Coverage of Azerbaijan’s Looming Parliamentary Elections

CIVIL SOCIETY

NEW TELEVISION CHANNELS COULD SHAKE UP COVERAGE OF AZERBAIJAN’S LOOMING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Olivia Allison 7/26/05

Print this article Email this article

Throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia, the ability of incumbents to control broadcast media has provided pro-government candidates with an enormous advantage in elections. The upcoming parliamentary election in Azerbaijan could prove an exception, as two new television channels that aim to begin broadcasting soon could foster more competitive campaign coverage.

Azerbaijan’s parliamentary vote, scheduled for November, is seen as a key democratization test. Some analysts suggest the election has the potential to spark political unrest, pointing to the examples of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, where attempted electoral manipulation sparked popular protests that toppled incumbent leaders. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Azerbaijan’s past elections, including the 2003 presidential balloting, have been marred by irregularities. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. However, the government has pledged to conduct a clean vote in November.

President Ilham Aliyev’s administration has come under strong international pressure to guarantee a free-and-fair vote, and opposition leaders, energized by developments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, have embraced aggressive political tactics for the campaign. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Roughly six weeks before the campaign kicks off, the country’s political elite is focusing on media issues, wrangling over a framework that would govern campaign coverage. Attention is centering on the pending appearance of two new television channels that potentially could broaden opposition candidates’ access to the airwaves.

The stated aim of both new stations -- the long-discussed Public Television channel (OTV) and a possible "independent" satellite channel that would be broadcast from Prague -- is to provide balanced coverage. At present, almost all of Azerbaijan’s television stations are owned and operated by the government or by entrepreneurs with close ties to Aliyev’s administration.

The public TV channel, due to begin broadcasting in mid-August after months of highly contentious debate, is due to receive $3.5 million in funding from the state, prompting some media analysts to believe it will reinforce the pro-government bias in broadcast media. The station’s general director, Ismail Omarov, has emerged as a lightning rod for controversy. He has held a variety of administrative and editorial posts at the state television channel, AzTv 1, and has served as a pro-government member of parliament. Many opposition journalists say his selection as general director increases the likelihood that OTV will fail to achieve its goal of opening up Azerbaijan’s media climate.

"They’ll be totally acting according to the dictates of the presidential administration," Media Rights Institute Director Rashid Hadjili said. "It’s most visible in how they chose the general director—he’s exactly the type they shouldn’t have chosen if they had used an objective selection method." [Rashid Hadjili serves on the board of the Open Society Assistance Foundation in Azerbaijan, part of the Soros Foundations Network. EurasiaNet operates under the auspices of the Open Society Institute in New York.]

Omarov brushes off criticism about editorial past, saying it is "not a sin" to have worked for state television. He claims that OTV’s staff was hired without consideration given to political affiliation, and insists that the station’s campaign coverage will be fair. "It will be 50/50, opposition and governmental," he said. "If I give one minute to the government, I will give one minute to the opposition. We want the words ‘public TV’ to mean ‘objectivity.’"

Hadjili and five other prominent political and media figures are trying to attract funding for Yeni TV, a planned satellite TV station that would be broadcast from Prague. The founders — including opposition newspaper editors and former presidential adviser Eldar Namazov — first attempted to register the new station in Azerbaijan, but the Justice Ministry rejected their application in April. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The satellite station promises to cover issues that other stations which are dependent on government financing would not touch. It has a projected annual budget of $1 million for the first year of operations, including an estimated $300,000 that would be spent on campaign coverage. Financial questions are clouding the station’s future, however. Hadjili has sought to obtain grants from international organizations, but his efforts have so far proven unsuccessful. The main concern for potential donors was that Yeni TV, broadcasting as a satellite channel, would not be able to attract sufficient advertising revenue to become self-sustainable.

"Although we believe that diversity of opinion is a crucial element of democracy, we are not convinced that this idea would have a broad enough audience reach for long-term sustainability," an embassy official said.

Hadjili says the station’s founders will continue trying to attract funding from donors inside Azerbaijan. Such efforts to date have met with little success. Some journalists have questioned whether a station based in the Czech Republic could provide up-to-the-minute campaign coverage that could attract a wide audience. One international non-governmental organization representative characterized the project as a "waste of money."

Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe, in collaboration with several local journalist organizations, drew up a Code of Ethics on Election Coverage. A key provision in the code, signed by many opposition and pro-government journalists on July 13, is a guarantee of equal access to media for candidates. Some observers, citing the fact that a similar guarantee is contained in Azerbaijan’s Election Code, wonder whether the creation of the ethical code will be able to reduce partisanship in campaign coverage.

Political advertising is another area that is the subject of scrutiny and haggling. Opposition supporters remember a 2003 price-fixing controversy concerning political advertising. For the upcoming parliamentary vote, the opposition wants to ensure that pro-government candidates do not receive preferential rates for political advertising on major television stations. ANS TV, currently perceived as the most independent Baku TV station, has not yet determined its rates for political advertising during the looming campaign, General Director Fuad Jabarov said.

At the same time, one opposition-leaning print media outlet, the Azadlig newspaper, has announced it will not accept advertising from pro-government candidates, despite an apparent legal obligation to accept all advertising that meets Election Code standards. "We won’t accept ads from obviously pro-governmental parties because their money is dirty," claimed the newspaper’s general-director, Azer Akhmedov. "Our conscience won’t allow it."

Editor’s Note: Olivia Allison is a researcher at Rice University who travels frequently throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia. She specializes in media-related coverage.

The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website, meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and controversial issues.

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the position of the Open Society Institute and are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.