Thumbnail Sketches of Azerbaijan's Major Political Parties

Yeni (New) Azerbaijan Party (YAP)
Chairman: Presient Heydar oglu Aliev
Secretary General: Ali Ahmedov
Founded: 1992

Yeni Azerbaijan was created to support the political career of President Heydar Aliyev. It is therefore the country’s ruling party, commanding an overwhelming majority in Parliament and providing the bureaucrats that staff the country’s central and regional governments.

The party leadership comprises many members of President Aliyev’s immediate family. Ilham Aliyev, his son, is first deputy chairman. Jalal and Agil Aliyev, his brothers, Jamil Aliyev his nephew and Vasif Talibov, the President’s sister’s son-in-law, all hold high offices in the Party.

YAP first institutionalized its power during the 1995 parliamentary elections, when it won an absolute majority of seats and effectively transformed the legislation into a rubber stamp body for the President. The party’s primary task in the 2000 elections is to ensure the election of Ilham Aliyev, the first name on YAP’s party list, in order to secure his inheritance of the presidency from his father. Under Azerbaijan’s Constitution, the Speaker of Parliament assumes the presidency in the event of an emergency. Many people in Baku envision a scenario whereby Ilham is elected to Parliament, where he is subsequently elected Speaker and thus cast in this role.

To date, YAP has registered 130 candidates to conduct 100 majoritarian seats. It has submitted a complete list of 25 candidates to contest the 25 seats that are to be elected under the proportional system.

YAP has six seats on the Central Election Commission (CEC), the body responsible for administering the elections, and controls the Chairmanship.

YAP’s newspaper are Yeni Azerbaijan, Nakhichevan and SES.

Azerbaijan Xalq Cabhasi (Popular Front) APFP
Chairman: None
First Deputy Chairman: Ali Kerimov

The Popular Front was formed in 1989 to lead the country’s movement for national independence. It was always more of a loose coalition than a party, even after its formal registration as a political party in 1995. The party’s late Chairman, Abulfaz Elchibey, was elected President of independent Azerbaijan in the country’s first democratic elections in June 1992. The Popular Front government came to an abrupt end when it was unseated by a coup d’etat in June 1993 that brought Heydar Aliyev to power.

Following Elchibey’s death in August 2000, longstanding divisions fiinally produced a split inside the party, with Elchibey loyalists on one side and the supporters of 35-year old Ali Kerimov on the other. The rift grew from competition between the factions for the top slots in the party list for the 2000 parliamentary elections. Presently, two separate groups, each with its own list, claim the APFP’s mantle. The Central Election Commission has recognized the one led by Ali Kerimov, a decision that many observers take as confirmation of dealings between this faction of the APFP and the government. Ali Kerimov’s faction makes the same accusation of the other group. Musavat, Azerbaijan’s other main opposition party and co-sponsor with the APFP of the Democratic Congress, supports the other faction, led by APFP deputy Chairman, Mirmakhmoud Fattayev, as the authentic successors of Elchibey. In exchange for this recognition, Fattayev’s group will support Musavat in the proportional races since its members have been excluded from participation.

To date, the APFP has registered 34 candidates. Other candidates were refused registration on grounds that signatures gathered to support their candidacies were invalid.

The newspaper most closely associated with the APFP is Azadliq.

Azerbaijan Milli Istiglal (National Independence) Party (AMIP)
Chairman: Ehtibar Salidar oglu Mamedov, MP
Founded: 1992

Etibar Mamedov was formerly a member of the Board of the Popular Front and in the late 1980s was identified with the radical nationalist wing. He founded the Azerbaijan National Independence Party in 1992 in opposition to the Popular Front government under Abulfaz Elchibey. He supported President Aliyev’s ascension to power, but rejected offers to join his government. AMIP was treated by the government as a "loyal opposition" - in contrast to the "radical opposition of the APFP and Musavat -- until 1998, when Mr. Mamedov ran against Heydar Aliyev in elections for the presidency that year. Mamedov was the only major candidate who ultimately chose to stay in the race rather than boycott, capturing enough votes, as confirmed by local and international observers, to go to the second round. While official results gave Mamedov 12 percent, independent calculations gave him approximately 25 to 30 percent. AMIP was punished for Mamedov’s strong performance after the elections, as the government cracked down on the party’s commercial and financial sponsors. AMIP is arguably Azerbaijan’s most business-minded and Western-like political party, and an effective campaigner. It is fiercely independent, shunning alliances of almost any kind with other parties.

AMIP received three seats during the 1995 parliamentary elections. To date it has registered 24 candidates, in addition to its party list.

AMIP’s newspaper is Millet.

Musavat (Equality) Party
Chairman: Isa Gambar
Secretary General: Vurgun Ayub

The Musavat party dates from Azerbaijan’s period of independence as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of 1918-1920, although the majority of the party’s current leaders were members of the Popular Front. In 1992 Musavat was re-established as a political party in Azerbaijan, after operating underground and in Turkey during the Soviet period, and registered in 1993.

One of two major opposition parties in Azerbaijan, Musavat is commonly characterized as the party of the Azerbaijani intelligentsia and former officials of the Elchibey government. In the wake of Elchibey’s death, Isa Gambar has come to be regarded as the leader of the country’s democratic opposition.

During the November 1995 elections, Musavat bore the brunt of the government's hostility toward the opposition, ultimately being banned from the proportional ballot on grounds that it failed to gather enough signatures to register.

The government used the same argument to ban Musavat from contesting the proportional ballot in the 2000 parliamentary elections. As a result of international pressure, the Central Election Commission (CEC) ultimately reversed the ban in response to a request from President Aliyev to do so. International pressure has also been necessary to protect Musavat members who have been subject to acts of extraordinary pressure and intimidation by the government during the campaign.

Musavat became Azerbaijan’s first political party to use primary elections to choose the candidates for the proportional list. To date, only 22 candidates have been registered for the majoritarian races, although no Musavat candidates have succeeded in registering to contest seats in Baku.

Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP)
Co-Chairmen: Ilyas Ismailov and Rasul Guliyev

The Azerbaijan Democratic Party was founded in Nakhichevan in 1992 by Sardar Jalal oglu. At first a marginal party, it gained influence and recognition in 1998 after Rasul Guliyev, former Speaker of Parliament under President Aliyev and presently a political exile, became co-Chairman.

ADP was unable to register to participate in the 1995 parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, by 1999 the party had six members, the biggest opposition faction in Parliament, having benefited from the defection of YAP members who joined the ADP out of loyalty to Guliyev. As a result of Mr. Guliyev’s political about-face, he and the party operate under enormous government pressure. Since joining the opposition, Guliyev has been accused of embezzlement and several family members and friends have been arrested on charges of terrorism and treason. Despite his immunity as a candidate for the top slot in the party’s proportional list, the government has vowed to arrest him should he leave the United States and attempt to return.

Having had its registration revoked in 1995, the ADP’s status was restored in 2000, in part as a result of international pressure. Similarly, the Central Election Commission accepted ADP’s list for the proportional system only after international organizaions intervened. To date, ADP has registered only four candidates to contest majoritarian seats.

The ADP’s newspaper is Hurriyet.

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Posted October 23, 2000 © Eurasianet
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