AZERBAIJAN: Flawed Polls, but Aliyev’s Hands Strengthened

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dilip Hiro

LONDON, Nov 14 1995 (IPS) - Not unexpectedly, the outcome of last weekend’s referendum on a new constitution, and the first parliamentary elections in independent Azerbaijan, strengthened the hands of president Haidar Aliyev.

Though foreign observers said the polls were flawed, the 73- year-old veteran of old Soviet politics, who has been in power for more than two years, would see the outcome as an overwhelming endorsement.

Preliminary results showed most voters approved the new constitution strengthening presidential powers. And most of the votes went to the New Azerbaijan Party, which supports Aliyev. The parliament will contain 100 directly elected deputies and another 25 spread out among the top parties.

Election monitors from the Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to which Azerbaijan belongs, said the elections were not conducted in accordance with international standards.

They cited irregularities including disqualification of many opposition candidates on trivial, technical grounds. Further, the state-run media gave disproportionate publicity to the pro- government candidates, OSCE observers said.

On polling day, there were instances where a single elector was allowed to vote many times over, presumably for the pro-government side, the observers said. This irregularity in turn enabled officials to claim two-thirds of the voters had turned up to exercise their right.

Going by the paucity of electors at the polling stations throughout the day, OSCE monitors and other foreign observers said they found it hard to accept the figures given out by the government.

Apparently, officials were aware that had the final turn-out fallen below 50 percent, the constitution required the whole exercise to be repeated, something they desperately wanted to avoid.

Though President Aliyev is fairly popular, and his Yeni (new) Azerbaijan Party has more widespread backing than any other political group, the Azeri leader has a reputation for following the strategy of “over-kill”.

Having been installed president in June 1993 by parliament – following the overthrow of Abualfaz Elchibey, the country’s first popularly elected president – Aliyev organised a presidential poll four months later.

Official results claimed a voter turnout of 90 percent, with 98.8 percent favouring Aliyev. Foreign diplomats put the voter turnout at 50 percent, a realistic estimate since three important opposition parties had boycotted the polls.

This time the opposition was even more fractured. Also, its election campaign was often flawed. Instead of focussing on the excessive executive powers that the new constitution confers on a president, these groups beat the drum of Azeri nationalism.

Azeri nationalism had its day when its leading proponent, Elchibey, got elected president in June 1992. But his inexperience and incompetence discredited the ideology, and he lost power.

In any case, as a small state, surrounded by powerful neighbours such as Russia, Turkey and Iran, Azerbaijan is in no position to take the nationalism ideology to its logical conclusion.

If nothing else, Aliyev grasped this geostrategic fact. He returned his country to the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), thus reversing Elchibey’s move. And he pacified Moscow by giving the Russian oil giant, Lukoil, a share of the equity of the Western-led consortium of petroleum companies set up to exploit Azerbaijan’s two offshore oilfields in the Caspian sea.

Having yielded to American pressures to exclude the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) by reneging on his promise to give the NIOC a share in the oil consortium, Aliyev dispatched his petroleum minister to Tehran last month with an offer to involve the NIOC in the exploitation of the third offshore oilfield in the Caspian.

Now, with added executive powers, sanctioned by the new constitution, and a freshly elected 100-member parliament, dominated by his Yeni Azerbaijan Party in place, wily Aliyev will feel more confident to play his cards well at home and abroad.

At home, the nearly eight-year old crisis of the Armenian- populated Nagorno Karabakh enclave, which has resulted in the Armenians occupying one-fifth of Azerbaijan, remains the most pressing political problem for Aliyev.

As and when Aliyev is able to dissipate the Nagorno Karabakh crisis, for which he sorely needs Russia’s active assistance, he will be able to hold elections that are genuinely free and fair, according to OSCE standards, and win, hands down.