The opposition quickly labeled the decision of the government to raise the salaries of the police cadre as an attempt of the ruling party to maintain the loyalty of the police forces on the eve of the November 6 parliamentary elections. Indeed, the fear of the revolutions that have taken place in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan has made Azerbaijani authorities somewhat insecure prior to these crucial elections. The opposition well remembers that it was the police forces that managed to put down the violent protests of opposition activists back in October 2003, following the presidential elections. Thus, ensuring the loyalty of the police forces to the ruling party would minimize risks of a velvet revolution in the country.

At the same time, local analysts believe that the amount of corruption in the police forces has reached such a high level that it has started backfiring at the image of President Aliyev. Police officials, especially the traffic police, have become notorious for taking bribes from citizens, harassing them as well as violating human rights in general terms. Recent surveys conducted by the local NGOs have shown that police forces have the lowest trust among the citizens. This is also partly driven by the March 2005 scandal that erupted in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, when a group of high ranking police officers were arrested because of heading a criminal group. This group has killed and kidnapped many famous celebrities and businessmen in the country. The Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and many other high ranking officials were fired and arrested due to this scandal and the public image of the Minister Ramil Usubov, once a very powerful figure in domestic politics, was shattered. Many speculated that the President would fire him, but he did not risk to do it prior to the elections.

Considering these problems, the government may have decided to neutralize this negative image of the ruling party prior to elections by trying to eliminate corruption in police ranks. After all, people will go to polling stations on November 6 to vote for what is best for their daily lives, and reducing corruption would help the ruling party to tilt the votes in its favor.

On the other hand, pragmatic experts tend to believe that it is the intention of the authorities to reduce corruption in the long term that drives the policy of increasing the salaries of the state-funded employees. Indeed, Azerbaijan adopted a new anti-corruption law in 2004, which entered the force starting from January 2005. A number of measures need to be taken according to this law, including publication of income and property declarations by high officials and creating a hotline for complaints.

As the Azerbaijani government continues to receive large revenues due to high oil prices in world markets, it will have the needed cash to increase the salaries and benefits of citizens. While doing so, it will need to be careful not to create inflation in the country and ruin the country’s macroeconomic stability.

Right after the salaries of the police officials were raised, rumors were spread in Baku that they had stopped taking bribes. In fact, last week four police officers were fired from their jobs for taking bribes, a very rare incident in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, ordinary drivers are complaining now. Since the salary raise, violations of traffic rules started costing much higher for them. “Before I would pay 10,000-20,000 manats ($2-$4) to the police officer and get my license back. Now I have to either give him five times more or most often they would not even take that and would rather prefer to fill in the fine form. And then I have to pay much higher fines to the government,” said Vugar Gasimov, a taxi driver in downtown Baku.