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AZERBAIJAN: RISK OF REVOLUTION IN NOVEMBER ELECTIONS
ANSA English Media Service
October 10, 2005
(ANSA) - MOSCOW, October 10 - Following the "colour revolutions"
in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, another former Soviet republic
is facing an imminent risk of popular uprising as Azerbaijan will
vote on November 6 in parliamentary elections amid growing discontent
against the authoritarian regime of President Ilham Aliyev, son and
successor of the last communist despot.
Main opposition leader Rasul Guliyev, who has lived in exile in
the United States since 1996, has decided to return home before the
elections, using the immunity which the status of election candidate
gives him. He warned from the columns of Moscow's Nezavisimaya
Gazeta daily on Monday that the situation was becoming increasingly
serious and one could not be sure next month's elections would be
held normally.
"A new wave of repression could be the straw that breaks the camel's
back and the situation may turn uncontrollable. People can be urged
to extreme actions and in this case I cannot answer for the fate of
those who are currently in power in Azerbaijan," Guliyev said.
In fact not a Sunday passes without riot police being called to
disperse by force unauthorised opposition rallies in the centre of
Baku and it seems Aliyev's regime has done lately the best it can
to learn how to crush a mass revolt. Obviously, the powerful in
Azerbaijan fear the scenario, which in the past two years brought
about the ousting of the post-Soviet worn-out regimes in Tbilisi,
Kiev and Bishkek, may repeat.
In the past few weeks the regime started to openly accuse the
opposition of plotting to oust the established order together with
the enemy Armenia and with a U.S. organisation (National Democratic
Institute). And made numerous arrests.
Leader of Azerbaijan's Democratic Party and former parliament speaker
who is issued an arrest warrant in his homeland, Guliyev expects
grand things from the November 6 elections.
"We can win some 100 seats out of the 125 if there is no
election-rigging," Guliyev said.
But he takes for granted the fact that there will be manipulations,
as he claims there were in the 2003 presidential elections.
"We shall not accept election-rigging. The people will take to the
streets to defend their rights and at that point the United States
will back the popular protest movements," Guliyev warned.
Despite the fact the Western world does not appreciate much 43-year-old
Aliyev because of the corruption reigning within his clan, it has
backed him so far because Azerbaijan, where nearly 40 percent of the
mostly Muslim eight million population lives below the poverty line,
is the starting point of the black gold pumped from the Caspian
Sea. With U.S. blessing a recently opened oil pipeline carries oil
to Turkey passing through Georgia. (ANSA).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
ANSA English Media Service
October 10, 2005
(ANSA) - MOSCOW, October 10 - Following the "colour revolutions"
in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, another former Soviet republic
is facing an imminent risk of popular uprising as Azerbaijan will
vote on November 6 in parliamentary elections amid growing discontent
against the authoritarian regime of President Ilham Aliyev, son and
successor of the last communist despot.
Main opposition leader Rasul Guliyev, who has lived in exile in
the United States since 1996, has decided to return home before the
elections, using the immunity which the status of election candidate
gives him. He warned from the columns of Moscow's Nezavisimaya
Gazeta daily on Monday that the situation was becoming increasingly
serious and one could not be sure next month's elections would be
held normally.
"A new wave of repression could be the straw that breaks the camel's
back and the situation may turn uncontrollable. People can be urged
to extreme actions and in this case I cannot answer for the fate of
those who are currently in power in Azerbaijan," Guliyev said.
In fact not a Sunday passes without riot police being called to
disperse by force unauthorised opposition rallies in the centre of
Baku and it seems Aliyev's regime has done lately the best it can
to learn how to crush a mass revolt. Obviously, the powerful in
Azerbaijan fear the scenario, which in the past two years brought
about the ousting of the post-Soviet worn-out regimes in Tbilisi,
Kiev and Bishkek, may repeat.
In the past few weeks the regime started to openly accuse the
opposition of plotting to oust the established order together with
the enemy Armenia and with a U.S. organisation (National Democratic
Institute). And made numerous arrests.
Leader of Azerbaijan's Democratic Party and former parliament speaker
who is issued an arrest warrant in his homeland, Guliyev expects
grand things from the November 6 elections.
"We can win some 100 seats out of the 125 if there is no
election-rigging," Guliyev said.
But he takes for granted the fact that there will be manipulations,
as he claims there were in the 2003 presidential elections.
"We shall not accept election-rigging. The people will take to the
streets to defend their rights and at that point the United States
will back the popular protest movements," Guliyev warned.
Despite the fact the Western world does not appreciate much 43-year-old
Aliyev because of the corruption reigning within his clan, it has
backed him so far because Azerbaijan, where nearly 40 percent of the
mostly Muslim eight million population lives below the poverty line,
is the starting point of the black gold pumped from the Caspian
Sea. With U.S. blessing a recently opened oil pipeline carries oil
to Turkey passing through Georgia. (ANSA).
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress