Situation in Azerbaijan - cliff-hanging thriller
As Azerbaijan prepares for parliamentary elections on November 6, observers are hotly debating whether President Ilkham Aliyev will avoid a "color revolution," thus escaping the fate of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
The situation in Azerbaijan is increasingly reminiscent of a cliff-hanging thriller. Its last pages are to be written on the night of November 7.
According to the tradition that has evolved in the post-Soviet area, presidential or parliamentary elections are an excellent opportunity for regime change. This tradition has been followed by Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. Azerbaijan seems posed to be next, as the local opposition is dreaming about a "velvet" revolution. According to leaders of major opposition parties, which formed the Azadlyg (Freedom) electoral block, the people are tired of corruption and poverty and want to see the progressive part of society - i.e., democrats and oppositional intellectuals - come to power.
It will be recalled that they failed dismally in the early 1990s.
A Revolution without a Leader
The Azerbaijani opposition copies its revolutionary methods from Georgia and Kyrgyzstan: Elections are declared rigged, people take to the street, heading for the parliament building and taking power into their own hands. Until recently, however, the Democratic Party leader, Rasul Guliyev, who was supposed to spearhead the people`s fight for their rights, was outside Azerbaijan. It was planned that Guliyev would return to Baku on October 17 from years-long emigration in the United States with great fanfare. Azadlyg urged thousands of its supporters to come to Bina airport to welcome Guliyev and protect him against possible arrest. Meanwhile, his deputy, Sardar Dzhalaloglu, warned: If the authorities arrest Rasul-bei, there will be mass civil disobedience, leading to a great orange revolution in Azerbaijan.
Baku officialdom, however, paid little heed to the warning: The ex-speaker and candidate deputy faces charges of stealing $110 million, while the Prosecutor General`s Office stripped him of immunity from prosecution. Tens of thousands of police, army soldiers and commandos, supported by armor, were sent to meet Guliyev. Security arrangements were tightened around the presidential staff building, the parliament, and other vital installations.
For these or other reasons, Guliyev did not come to Baku. Thus, the Azerbaijani orange revolution was left without a leader
MIGNews
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