Youth organizations in Azerbaijan are linking the recent arrest of a 20-year-old activist who called for a “Day of Rage” in Baku to the government’s apparent concern about political fallout from events in Egypt. Azerbaijani police deny that the arrest had any political connection.
Angry demonstrators in Cairo most definitely don’t have the right to vote in Azerbaijan. But officials in Baku seem to be acting these days as though they do.
Amid ongoing protests in Egypt, a US State Department warning about a terrorist threat “against American interests” in Azerbaijan has placed the government in Baku in an awkward situation. Senior members of the governing Yeni Azerbaijan Party have criticized the US action, while law enforcement agencies have questioned the basis for the alert.
Like many Azerbaijanis, Elnura Jivazade, a resident of the Baku suburb of Khirdalan, is watching Egypt’s political upheaval closely. But unlike most Azerbaijanis, Jivazade sees Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak each morning. His statue, a symbol of Azerbaijani-Egyptian friendship, stands in a Khirdalan park that she passes each weekday on her way to work.
Energy-rich Azerbaijan is becoming a regional magnet for illegal labor migrants. The government is intent on containing the trend, but a recent Constitutional Court decision to overturn stiff fines for employing illegal migrants is injecting an element of uncertainty into the issue.
The recent arrest of the leader of the outlawed Islamic Party of Azerbaijan is raising questions about the future role of Islam in Azerbaijani politics. Analysts in Baku differ on how much influence the Islamic Party has, but many share the belief that Islam could form the basis for a new generation of opposition activists.
In the aftermath of Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections on November 7, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said "the country needs to do much more to make progress in developing a truly pluralist democracy." Khadija Ismaiylova of RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service spoke about the vote and the future of democracy in Azerbaijan with Ambassador Audrey Glover, head of the OSCE's Office
With the preliminary results in, Azerbaijan’s November 7 parliamentary voting saw only one clear opposition candidate gain a seat in the country’s 125-member parliament. Independent election monitors say they observed numerous irregularities during the voting.
Each night in Azerbaijan, thousands of families are tuning in on television to watch the next installment in what has become a de facto smash hit series – debates involving the 688 candidates in the November 7 parliamentary elections.
