BACKGROUND: On May 13, Azerbaijan held “mini” parliamentary elections, re-runs in the ten constituency remaining vacant since last November due to the election fraud there and the subsequent annulment of the election results by the Central Election Commission and the Constitutional Court. These re-elections presented the government of Azerbaijan with another opportunity to prove to the international community and domestic voters that it is capable of pulling together its political will and to conduct free and fair elections. At the same time, it presented a new test to the international community, more specifically to the Council of Europe, where Azerbaijan’s commitments to democracy will be discussed in the June session. The pre-election campaign season was much calmer and less dynamic as the one in November, due to obvious reasons of voter apathy and the boycott of the re-elections by the major Azadliq opposition block. Yet, all eyes were focused on the actual Election Day and particularly to the moment of vote count, since almost all previous elections in the country experienced major election fraud in this field. Notably, last year the OSCE/ODIHR monitoring mission reported that the “counting process in more than 43 percent of the polling stations observed were bad or very bad.” This time, the conduct of the elections on actual Election Day, including the vote count, experienced major improvements. The U.S. Embassy in Baku released a statement on Monday, which said that “The United States believes there was some progress in the conduct of Azerbaijan’s May 13 parliamentary rerun elections, and shares the views in the May 15 statement by the OSCE/ODIHR Limited Election Observation Mission. Specifically, we welcome improvements in finger-inking, candidate registration, largely unimpeded campaigning, and quick posting of the results on the website of the Central Election Commission. We were pleased to see the large numbers of domestic election observers who participated, including representatives of the Election Monitoring Center.” The Council of Europe monitoring group’s head Leo Platvoet also expressed a similar opinion on ANS TV’s Nezer Nogtesi program about the visible progress during the rerun elections. Both the U.S. embassy and Council of Europe also noted some remaining shortcomings in the election process, such as the composition of the election commissions, yet still most international observers came to the conclusion that the by-elections were cleaner and fairer than previous elections. Similarly, the OSCE/ODIHR monitoring mission also noted that “the repeat election process reflected some improvements, such as an inclusive candidate registration, a largely unimpeded campaign, and increased opportunities for the participation of domestic observers.” Ali Hasanov, head of the President’s Office’s Political Department said that the “by-elections proved that the Azerbaijani government is interested in democracy and that it is willing to apply its political will to conduct free and fair elections.” It should be also noted that the results of several exit polls conducted by independent foreign NGOs, including the one sponsored by the U.S. Government, were almost entirely consistent with official results. The winners were overwhelmingly candidates of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) and independents with affiliations with the authorities.

IMPLICATIONS: What is the reason behind this landslide victory of the ‘candidates of power’ even as the vote count appeared free and fair? The answer could lie in the changing nature of Azerbaijani elections. For the most part of the 1990s and early 2000s, the elections were fraudulent due to the fact that the ‘candidates of power’ were not campaigning actively on the ground and were mostly relying on the President’s office and the YAP headquarters for political support. The Parliament in the 1990s was mostly composed of representatives of the intelligentsia and former Soviet Nomenklatura, who were unwilling and incapable to wage a modern-style election campaign. Besides, at that time, the opposition parties were much stronger and voters were much more driven by ideology. In today’s Azerbaijan, the emerging business elite and the increasing ambitions of wealthy oligarchs to enter politics are driving the intelligentsia and YAP-supported Nomenklatura into the shadows. It is these wealthy, government-connected personalities that now play the most important role in the elections. They spend huge amounts of money on advertisement, voter outreach activities (concerts, town hall meetings, door-to-door campaigning) as well as often through ‘vote buying’, both literally and through persuasion and pressure. Meanwhile, the opposition parties are in complete stagnation after more than thirteen years of continued losses and marginalization. The general Azerbaijani public has also moved away from the ideologically driven politics of the 1990s to more pragmatic and day-to-day materialistic politics of the 2000s. With substantial numbers of people still living in poverty and difficult socio-economic conditions, many of them happily trade their votes for money or deliverables such as paved roads and fixed electricity lines, the power of money is becoming the most important factor in the election process. Thus, most of the wealthy, oligarchic ‘candidates of power’ are able to secure votes prior to election day, and there is little incentive remaining for the authorities to commit election fraud on actual election day, including during the vote count. This is facilitated by the electoral system, based on single-members constituencies, which weakens the role of political parties and provides opportunities for single candidates to win elections in individual districts by delivering or promising to deliver goods. The May 13 rerun elections could change the nature of Azerbaijani politics. From now on, candidates with money are in a much more advantageous position to win seats in parliament. Thus, the poor and marginalized opposition parties are unlikely to continue to lose future elections and stay out of the decision making process. This tendency is on the one hand an improvement, as it implies a lesser degree of state interference in the electoral process and a more pluralistic process. Indeed, in both the November and May elections, some parliamentary seats were hotly contested by several representatives that were closely connected to the authorities. On the surface at least, it will be the people that choose their representatives. But on the other hand, the present tendency is dangerous, because it risks to reduce liberal democratic values in society even as elections are free and fair. As one former candidate to the November 2005 Parliamentary elections put it, “in today’s Azerbaijan if there are free and fair elections, only oligarchs will enter the Parliament.” As long as there is a strong state, this will mean stability in parliament. But as witnessed in Kyrgyzstan, parliamentary elections, if unchecked, can become hideouts for business interests of a more shady and even criminal type.

CONCLUSIONS: Azerbaijan has entered a new phase in its democratic development, a phase where the actual election process can be conducted freely and fairly without major violations of law, something long wished for and advocated by the international community. Yet this will not mean that the political system will be built on democracy and liberal-democratic values – it will not be a marketplace of ideas but simply a marketplace. This is to a significant extent related to the decreasing appeal of political ideologies to the population, compared to material benefits of a growing economy. Resource-scare opposition parties are at a serious disadvantage to compete in such an election environment, and most elected oligarch MPs support the policy of the government, at least for now. Thus, Azerbaijan is increasingly moving towards a style of governance lacking an active and vibrant public debate and a real balance of power between government and opposition. If this shows that the government has adapted its strategies to new realities, it equally indicates that the opposition has completely failed to do so. Hence it will now be up to the opposition to restore its capability to promote an issue-based debate and participate in the political life of the country with alternative policy views. Whether this will happen will also be dependent on state policy and on the role of external actors.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Alman Mir Ismail is a freelance political analyst based in Baku.