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Russia and the US get their man in
Azerbaijan
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - The Kremlin has dispatched its top
security bureaucrat to Azerbaijan, officially to discuss
ways to combat terrorism. However, on the eve of
Azerbaijan's presidential elections on October 15, the
trip appears designed to give Moscow's endorsement to
dynastic succession in the country.
The head of
Russia's Security Council, Vladimir Rushailo, who
arrived in the Azeri capital Baku on Tuesday for a
two-day visit, immediately made Moscow's position clear,
although he was talking about Azeri support in fighting
international terrorism. "We are interested in
continuity, so as [to see] Azeri foreign policy go ahead
in the same constructive way as it used to."
Eighty-year-old President Heidar Aliyev last
week bowed out of Azerbaijan's political arena after
ruling over the country for more than 30 years, in favor
of his 42-year-old son Ilham, who will be the ruling
party's only candidate in the elections, and as such
almost certain to win.
The Putin administration
appears eager to continue the relationship forged in
recent years with Azerbaijan, and as such views the
impending father-to-son transfer of power is seen as
offering the best chance of maintaining political
stability in the resource-rich Caspian region.
In pursuing dynastic political transition in
Azerbaijan, Aliyev is adopting a variant of a succession
model developed in Russia by former Russian leader Boris
Yeltsin. Under the Yeltsin scenario, the president
resigned on the last day of 1999, allowing his interim
successor, Vladimir Putin, to run for president in March
2000 as an incumbent, thus making all the perquisites of
state power available to his campaign. Accordingly,
Putin easily secured a full presidential term.
As Aliyev's health declined, the process of
dynastic transfer intensified in the former Soviet
state. On August 4, parliament named Ilham as prime
minister.
Aliyev's October 2 announcement that
he is withdrawing from the presidential race in favor of
Ilham was somewhat undermined by the fact that it was
read by an anchor on state television, lending credence
to opposition claims that Aliyev's illness has left him
incapacitated. The president has not made a public
appearance in months, and is reportedly in extremely
fragile health as he receives treatment at a clinic in
the United States.
In 2002, a referendum
approved constitutional amendments, one of which
stipulates that the prime minister becomes acting
president if the president is incapacitated or resigns.
This was opposed by the opposition as designed to
catapult Ilham into power.
In the late 1990s,
Moscow was wary of Azerbaijan's perceived intention to
build closer ties with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, which some predicted would include
Azerbaijan by 2005. Russian officials also accused
Azerbaijan of abetting the Chechen separatist campaign.
However, signs of detente subsequently emerged,
culminating on September 23 with the signing of an
agreement on the Caspian seabed boundary that paves the
way for dividing the two countries' rights to Caspian
oil and gas. Such agreements matter intensely to
Azerbaijan, which has based its economic strategy on
future oil and gas payments. Russia has also secured
continued use of the Gabala radar station, which is
located in Azerbaijan and which Russian media outlets
have speculated Moscow used to monitor the US-led war on
Iraq.
Recently, Azeri authorities have stepped
up measures designed to intimidate opposition
politicians, with comments like "we will never let the
opposition come to power. Their chances of coming to
power are equal to zero".
The Central Election
Commission has made several controversial decisions,
including rejecting the presidential candidacies of
several high-profile political figures, such as former
parliament speaker Rasul Guliyev and former president
Ayaz Mutalibov.
Mutalibov has lived in exile in
Moscow since 1992, and observers once speculated that
the Kremlin considered him as a potential
Russia-friendly successor to Aliyev. However, since last
year, Moscow presumably dropped its support of Mutalibov
as this could poison Russia's relationship with Aliyev
and his chosen successor, Ilham. This relationship was
highlighted by Aliyev's repeated trips to Russia last
year, although the president's poor health forced the
postponement of a visit to Baku by Putin in July.
It is widely believed that Ilham will be
declared the winner of the presidential election October
15 - if for no other reason than the authorities are
expected to resort to ballot fraud in order to guarantee
that the New Azerbaijan Party retains power.
A
poll conducted in Azerbaijan by the Center for Political
and Economic Research (FAR Center) , with support from
the US National Endowment for Democracy, found that a
clear plurality expects the presidential election to be
marred by voting irregularities. When asked if they felt
that the polls would be "free and fair", 46 percent said
"no". Almost 27 percent responded "yes", and another 27
percent said they "didn't know".
Political
transition looms at a time when the country is balancing
between the United States and Russia in a "big game"
over the Caspian's energy riches. Azerbaijan is the
central player in US-backed efforts to export Caspian
Basin energy via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC).
On the other hand, Moscow has been highly critical of
the BTC project.
No surprise, then, that the US,
and the West, are watching the elections with interest.
A US State Department statement, released on October 4,
characterized them as "critical for Azerbaijan's
democratic development". The British embassy in Baku
issued an appeal for stability and a fair election.
According to the State Department, the US government is
allocating US$2 million to promote election
transparency, including "funds for 150 international
observers".
The statement cautioned the Azeri
government, expressing concern about "harassment and
violence against opposition and human rights activists".
It also criticized the election commission's decision
not to publish voter lists. At the same time, the State
Department said that opposition parties "have important
responsibilities in this election", adding that
government critics "should campaign vigorously and
conduct themselves peacefully".
Nevertheless,
the Bush administration appears to prefer an Ilham
victory, although during the son's recent visit to the
US he was cautioned by Secretary of State Colin Powell
that a violent response to demonstrations would be
deemed unacceptable by Washington.
A US
corruption case that has implicated top Azeri officials
has also clouded bilateral ties. A September indictment
presented in a New York federal court alleges that Swiss
lawyer Hans Bodmer "paid bribes and authorized the
payment of bribes" to four unnamed "senior officials" in
Azerbaijan in a scheme to influence the privatization of
the state oil company, SOCAR.
Western media have
reported that two of the officials are the president and
his son, who is a former deputy head of SOCAR. Azeri
government officials have vigorously denied such
allegations. Opposition media outlets in Azerbaijan,
however, have seized on the indictment, hoping that the
probe will improve the electoral chances. So far,
though, the response to the case in Azerbaijan has been
somewhat muted.
With both Russia and the US
backing dynastic succession in Azerbaijan, an
opportunity could arise for an improvement in US-Russian
cooperation in the Caspian region. Much, though, will
depend on Ilham Aliyev.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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