President Ilham Aliyev, who, according to the latest data, got 92.5% of the vote, is receiving congratulations from world leaders and, according to the unwritten rules of political courtesy, from his rivals in the election, who thus recognize their defeat. Seven candidates, including MPs Zahid Oruj, Razi Nurullayev, Gudrat Hasanguliyev, Fazil Mustafa…
But the PPFA contrived to… announce its “non-recognition of the election”. Apparently, there were no “conditions for fair competition”.
Didn’t the paper blush? Didn’t the monitors?
According to the international observers, the election was held in a transparent and competitive environment. Opportunities for free and sponsored campaigning, TV debates, and, finally, complete freedom of campaigning on social media, all conditions were created for rival candidates. The opposition refused to nominate its own candidate for the election without even starting the election campaign. Just as they abstained from participating in the 2018 presidential election. And now it is, to put it mildly, absurd to try to “shift” the blame for the radical opposition’s non-participation to the authorities: it was the opposition leaders’ decision to refuse to nominate their candidate without even starting the election campaign. And the reasons for this decision should be analyzed.
As a matter of fact, the opposition did not have a “win-win” scenario. Its leaders, despite all the propaganda clichés, had a sober understanding of the balance of forces in Azerbaijan and knew that they would not be able to compete with Ilham Aliyev. They were unable to win the election even in 2003, and today, after the implementation of the reform program and even more so after the victory in Karabakh, they had not even a theoretical chance for mind-blowing figures.
They could have tried to nominate a joint candidate from the opposition camp and get at least some votes. But even then, nothing much was going to happen. The last attempt of the opposition to run in the presidential election with a joint candidate in 2013 also ended in a resounding failure. At first, the opposition tried to nominate film director Rustam Ibrahimbekov as a joint candidate, but he failed to renounce his Russian citizenship in time. Then historian Jamil Hasanli became a joint candidate, but such a change of leadership did not do them any good. Especially against the background of a series of splits, alliances, some opposition parties opposing others, etc. The opposition has always had an overabundance of leadership ambitions on a tiny electoral field. Besides, there was no guarantee that Razi Nurullayev or Gudrat Hasanguliyev, former Popular Front members, would unite with Kerimli, whose rich political biography is now playing against him.
The Azerbaijani public remembers all too well how much it cost the country to have the leaders of the current opposition in power in 1992-1993. And they are all too well aware of the treacherous—there is no other way to put it—steps taken by the radical opposition in the following years, starting with the provocations during the Eurovision Song Contest. The result was an “anti-master class” on “how to lose elections without participating in them”.
And if we widen the chronological scope, the picture looks even worse. Theoretically, the opposition had a chance to work on its mistakes or at least recognize them. To publicly answer the question “what we did wrong”. Finally, to gain governance experience, which the opposition lacked and still lacks. Especially since there was a tool for this purpose, such as municipal elections. But the opposition camp ignored municipal elections with contempt. After all, they would have to deal with concrete issues, like road repairs and street lighting, rather than making thundering speeches about the future of the country and the world.
Today, the result of all that has been done and what has not been done paints a very sad picture for the radical opposition itself. Yes, opposition parties are part of the normal democratic process. Yes, there is a “protest electorate” in any country and any society. But today the Azerbaijani radical opposition is unable to rally even a protest electorate around itself, giving it up to anyone, from Islamists to anarchists. Nothing has changed there in all the past years of crises and inevitable drop in ratings, neither programs made up of catchy slogans and nothing else, nor slogans from the early nineties, nor the leaders. And this unequivocally reveals a stagnant environment in the opposition camp itself. Of course, they like to throw around clichés about the “alternation of power,” but they are in no hurry to apply the same requirements to their own parties. Yes, if an experienced leader of many years successfully copes with tasks and challenges, it can only be welcomed. But there is nothing remotely resembling success in the opposition camp. New problems have been added to the old ones: on the one hand, the inability to agree among themselves, and on the other hand, the willingness to ally with rather dubious “partners”, from Nardaran religious radicals to the pro-Russian “Union of Billionaires”. Not to mention the various NGOs funded by the West.
Is this the crowd we are supposed to pin our hopes for democratization and reforms on?
But even with this unfortunate arrangement, the opposition leaders had a chance at least not to disgrace themselves. Not to spread outright lies on the instructions of anti-Azerbaijani forces. Not to lie and not to hit another rock bottom. They did not have the guts even for that. The forces that claim to be “the main hope of the protest electorate” have degenerated into a cheap sideshow to cater to external orders.
One should keep all this in mind when the opposition camp starts squealing about “stuffed ballots”, “undemocratic elections”, etc.
