Azerbaijan's parliament wants to introduce a retirement package for the country’s former presidents, even though there are not too many of those around.
After a lifetime of leadership, the much-celebrated Heydar Aliyev died on the job in 2003 and was replaced by his son, Ilham Aliyev, another potential political lifer. Before the ten years of Aliyev the senior and eight years of Aliyev the junior, there were 14.5 months of Abülfaz Elçibəy, but he died in 2000.
That leaves Azerbaijan's first post-Soviet president, the septuagenarian Ayaz Mutalibov, the onetime tovarishch (comrade)-in-chief of Soviet Azerbaijan, now living in Moscow.
But with parliament controlled by Ilham Aliyev's New Azerbaijan Party, chances are that legislators are looking more to the future than to the Mutalibov past.
The draft bill, penciled in for parliamentary review in 2012, will specify what ex-presidents should receive in terms of perks. Across the world, the privileges for emeritus presidents often include a generous state pension, government-paid bills and bodyguards, plus a humble dacha/mansion.
Azerbaijan's parliament, often described as a rudimentary extension of the executive branch, is sure to show similar largess to secure a dignified retirement for its own presidents.
Granted, no sign exists that 49-year-old President Aliyev, whose term expires in 2013, is thinking of making a graceful exit from the scene, but could the fact that Azerbaijan's docile parliament has drafted this bill indicate that retirement has at least crossed his mind?
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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