EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Reports: Opposition, Police Clash on Azerbaijan Campaign Trail

EURASIA INSIGHT

REPORTS: OPPOSITION, POLICE CLASH ON AZERBAIJAN CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Shahin Abbasov and Khadija Ismailova 8/04/05

Tensions are mounting in the run-up to Azerbaijan’s November parliamentary elections, with increasingly frequent clashes reported between police and opposition groups and media. The conflict comes despite ongoing pressure from European organizations and the United States for a free and fair poll.

On August 1, members of the tripartite opposition Azadlig bloc, including Khalig Bahadir, an Azadlig candidate for parliament, claimed that they were beaten and up to 37 people arrested by police, after activists in the central Azerbaijani town of Sabirabad decided on a different location for a previously authorized demonstration, ANS television reported. Officials have denied the charges.

Hasan Karimov, deputy chair of the Popular Front Party, a member of the Azadlig bloc, told reporters that a similar clash in the western district of Tovuz had resulted in the arrest of 19 opposition activists, the news agency Assa Irada reported. A protest in the southern district of Lankaran was stopped when police suggested participants move the event seven kilometers away from the district center, Karimov said.

Opposition members in Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second largest city, also report similar pressure being brought to bear. After a July 1 meeting with US Ambassador Reno Harnish, Jahangir Amirkhanly, director of the opposition Musvat Party’s Ganja branch, claims that he was taken to the police station and threatened by the chief of police. "He warned me not to complain [about the city’s problems] when Andreas Gross and Andreas Herkel, co-rapporteurs of the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe] Monitoring Committee, will visit the city [on July 8]," Amirkhanly told EurasiaNet.

In the autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan, Malahat Nasibova, head of the Election Resource Center, a non-governmental organization, told EurasiaNet that police routinely arrest opposition activists and intervene in the work of local election commissions. Among the recent arrests was the local representative of the Popular Front Party, Sahib Huseynov, Nasibova charged. "They just catch activists and kick them out of the country to Turkey without documents and money. . . Nothing has changed in Nakhchivan since the last elections."

Internal Ministry spokesperson Ekhsan Zahidov has denied all media reports about police harassing opposition activists, Azadlig newspaper recently reported.

Opposition parties are much stronger and more tightly united than during the 2000 parliamentary election campaign when the biggest opposition party, the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), was split into three parts. This time, three opposition parties � the PFPA, Musavat and Democratic Party � will contend for seats as a single bloc, called Azadlig, and field a common list of candidates for each constituency.

Azadlig will also work with another opposition alliance YeS, a grouping of individuals and organizations largely seen as more moderate than Azadlig, to avoid competing candidates in constituencies. Although no official agreement yet exists, Musavat Party leader Isa Gambar stated in a July 14 press conference that "our aim is to avoid any competition between opposition parties and blocs." YeS has already shared their list of candidates with PFPA leader Ali Kerimli, YeS founder Eldar Namazov told EurasiaNet.

By contrast, the government is showing some sign of division. Local media report that several lists of potential future members of parliament have been compiled by various government figures, including presidential administration chief Ramiz Mekhdiyev, Economic Development Minister Farhad Aliyev and Azerbaijani Customs Chairman Kamalledin Heydarov, among others.

Joining the contenders are many so-called "non-partisan professionals," a new phenomenon in Azerbaijan politics, who are loosely grouped in units referred to as "young leaders" or "democratic reformers." These candidates could dilute votes for both the government and the opposition, according to Alasgar Mammadly, political expert and member of the Public Watchdog Group, an organization that monitors implementation of Azerbaijani commitments to international organizations.

"Most of them are mid-level professionals from different fields with big ambitions," Mammadly said. "Though they have not introduced any . . . program goals so far, these candidates may pose serious competition for both the opposition and pro-government candidates."

Mammadly projected that these non-partisan candidates, if elected, would not act as a united group opposing government initiatives � a factor that could facilitate their future cooperation with the government.

A simplified registration procedure means that an unprecedented number of candidates could take part in the race. To register as a candidate, individuals must collect 450 voter signatures from the relevant constituency or pay $2,460 (about 11,543.5 manats) as a deposit. As of August 3, 3, 809 people had registered as candidates, according to the Central Election Commission.

Nonetheless, obstacles remain. Some 2 million people in Azerbaijan have no documentation to prove their citizenship, meaning that, according to existing legislation, they will not be allowed to vote, said Public Watchdog Group’s Mammadly. "They are mostly old and poor people, so they are potentially a �protest electorate,’" Mammadly said. "I believe on the eve of the elections it will be a special order of the Central Election Commission that will allow these people to vote. However, candidates who now are looking for signatures for registration have already suffered from this problem."

The size of the potential field of contenders, however, means that media battles could prove particularly fierce. For the first time in an Azerbaijani election campaign, smear tactics � or so-called "black PR" -- are routinely put to work by both pro-government and opposition media outlets. At a July 11 panel discussion in Baku organized by the presidential administration and Council of Europe, a code of ethics was proposed for the election period, but two pro-government television stations and three opposition newspapers have refused to sign it.

In an attempt to provide voters with balanced information, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plans to conduct television debates between opposition and pro-government candidates in September.

For now, though, opposition and privately owned media report that they sense themselves under constant scrutiny for their election coverage. Baloglan Mirzoyev, head of the private television station Lankaran TV, based in the city of Lankaran, the largest in Azerbaijan’s south, told EurasiaNet that he has faced pressure from the local department of the Ministry of National Security for airing news about opposition activities in the region. "They threatened me with tough measures if I continue to cover the opposition," Mirzoyev said.

Ali Rza, deputy editor-in-chief of the opposition Azadlig newspaper, reported that on the eve of the visit to Ganja by PACE co-rapporteurs Andreas Gross and Andreas Herkel in early July, the city’s Azadlig correspondent "was called into the police station and warned to say �the right things,’" Rza said. "We feel more and more pressure as election day gets closer." Azadlig magazine has since been banned from sale in Baku, and one vendor detained by police, magazine editor Rovsan Haciyev told the Russian news agency Regnum on August 2.

Reactions by international observers to the election campaign have been mixed. PACE co-rapporteurs Andreas Gross and Andreas Herkel have so far delivered the harshest assessment. In early July, the pair traveled through three regions of Azerbaijan � Ganja, Balaken and Gazakh � to assess the pre-election situation.

"The situation in Azerbaijan is as dangerous as it was in Georgia and Ukraine [on] the eve of their elections. Fortunately, they managed to avoid tragic results. But [the] situation in Azerbaijan is much more complicated," Herkel stated in a July 14 interview with the daily newspaper Echo.

"I do not see any real directive to provide normal democratic parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan. All improvements are done thanks to huge pressure [by] the Council of Europe and other international institutions, and that is not normal."

During her July 12-14 visit to Baku, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright delivered a more upbeat evaluation. After meetings with President Ilham Aliyev, opposition members, media outlet owners and women activists, Albright told reporters that she left "with hope, belief and expectations that the Azeri nation will peacefully and evolutionally transit to democracy."

More scrutiny could soon be in the offing: on August 18 visit by PACE President Rene van der Linden is scheduled to visit Azerbaijan to examine election preparations. Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis will arrive in early September.

That display of interest [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. coincides with an unprecedented build-up in international observers for the poll. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reports that it will deploy not fewer than 500 monitors for short-term monitoring. These monitors will arrive in Azerbaijan one week before the November 6 election and leave two days afterwards. Long-term observers, on the scene from August until shortly after the election, number 28. Ambassador Gert Ahrens, who headed the OSCE’s long-term election observation mission for Ukraine’s parliamentary elections in 2004, will hold the same post in Azerbaijan. The number of observers from the European Union, Council of Europe, National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute and other organizations has not been announced yet.

The U.S. embassy in Baku is focusing on exit polls as a means to prevent election fraud. The government has agreed that if the difference between official results and exit poll results is larger than six percent, the electoral commission will launch an investigation, said Tahir Suleymanov, a representative of the presidential administration. The US is expected to announce the winner of the tender to conduct the polls in August.

Editor�s Note: Shahin Abbasov and Khadija Ismailova are freelance journalists based in Baku.

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