Azerbaijan has become “not free country”: Azeri press digest

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Politics

Freedom House reports in 2005 that Georgia, Armenia and Turkey are “partly free,” while Iran and Azerbaijan — “not free” countries (Azeri Press)

Chairman of the US National Democratic Institute, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright shares the disappointment of the international structures and the Azeri opposition with the Nov 6 parliamentary elections. In her address to the leaders of the opposition blocs “Azadlyg” and “National Unity” Isa Gambar, Ali Kerimli, Sardar Jalaloglu and Lala Sovkat, Albright shows concern for the serious problems recorded by OSCE, CE and other observers during the elections. Still, she is glad to know that the opposition protested peacefully. She recommends the opposition to gather and adduce to the OSCE evidence of violations during the elections. Albright urges the opposition to go on being constructive in the politics despite the “difficulties.” She regrets that NDI was unable to observe the elections. She hopes that Azeri plenipotentiaries will shortly eliminate the violations. Albright concludes with a promise that NDI will further support democratic processes in Azerbaijan. (Mediaforum)

The chief of the Baku police Maherram Aliyev says that the opposition is played out: “I saw their last rally. Only 20-30 people had come. The people have seen for themselves that the opposition's rally policy is just futility. Already tired of rallies people refused to come. The opposition leaders were not there either. Their trouble is that those beating their breasts have never moved forward. They pushed forward old people, women and children just to hide behind their backs.” (Azeri Press)

“With over a month having already passed since the elections, the opposition is still on the crossroads. The anti-government camp is still hesitant: to take part in the work of the parliament and the repeated elections or to boycott till the end?” reports Zerkalo. "The advocates of radical measures say that retreat from categorical actions may lose the opposition support among its voters.

They say that agreeing to parliamentary minority the opposition will doom itself to the same lot we have all been witnesses to in the last years. Few seats in the parliament will not allow the opposition to be weighty enough to oppose its will to the will of the government. Thus, if the opposition accepts the rules of the government's game and takes its few and petty parliamentary seats, it will, once and for all, have to say god-bye to its illusions of some support from its supporters some day. Playing by the government's rules the opposition will jeopardize its chances at the presidential race 2008.

What will the deputy mandates give the opposition? The question is not so much how many seats the opposition will gain in the repeated elections as how political relations will change in the country. As long as the government acts by “draconian laws,” there will, alas, be no civilized political struggle. In any case, the political life in Azerbaijan is stepping over to the most unfavorable outcome of the political crisis. The time for compromise has already been missed, and unless a common denominator is come to, even the repeated elections will hardly satisfy the opposition.

Despising what it has, the opposition will claim more. This will result in the Azeri scenario. And to prevent this, the authorities are doing their best to have their political opponents employed in the parliament. Their efforts are easy to understand. The opposition is lingering with radical decisions, which is pushing the officials to “heroism.” In any case, the opposition must forget about Christian moral: “If they slap you on one cheek, turn the other,” especially as there is no need to specially turn “cheek” for the government to do it.

Economy. Finances

In Jan-Nov 2005 the inflation in Azerbaijan made up 9.9% as against Jan-Nov 2004. The State Statistical Committee reports the food prices to grow in the period by 11.6%, the non food ones by 5.6%, the services by 10.1%. (AzerTag)

The price for the Russian gas import to Azerbaijan will be raised from $60 to $100 for 1,000 c m Jan 1 2006. This was agreed on in Baku by representatives of Gazprom and SOCAR. The basic volume of gas supplies will not change next year — 4.5 bln c m. In Jan-Nov 2005 the volume of supplies was 4.154 bln c m, which is 5.5% less than in Jan-Nov 2004. The domestic demand for gas in Azerbaijan is 9.5-10 bln c m a year. The share of gas in the country's fuel-energy balance is almost 45%. (Echo)

Azerbaijan is to denominate its national currency Jan 1 2006. The Azeri manat will lose three zeros and will get more expensive that USD. After denomination 1 new Azeri monetary unit will be equivalent to 5,000 manats. According to the present exchange rate this is 1.08 USD. The chairman of the board of the National bank of Azerbaijan Elman Rustamov says that "the national currency will not be artificially linked to USD, and its exchange rate will be determined by the market. Denomination will bring manat closer to the leading world currencies, says Rustamov. Designing the new Azeri money was the designer of the Austrian OeBS company Robert Kolina, the designer of EUR. Rustamov notes that “the manat will be no less protected than EUR.” The new Azeri money has as many as 30 degrees of protection. (Zerkalo)

IMF is concerned for the key mid-term problem in Azerbaijan in connection with the significant growth of the oil revenues and says that this “Dutch syndrome” must be curbed, reports Trend with reference to the statement of the mission of the IMF department for Middle East and Central Asia made after the talks with the Azeri Government on Article 4 of the Agreement on IMF. The mission deems it inexpedient, when forming mid-term fiscal frameworks, to stick to the long-term oil income management strategy, approved by the president in 2004. IMF recommends structural reforms for ensuring continuous growth of the non-oil production. First of all recommended is the reinforcement of the banking sector, including the two state banks, the improvement of corporate management at state companies, the replacement of energy sector subsidizing by target social aid. Also proposed is to ameliorate business climate by adopting new laws on investment and anti-monopoly activities, to accelerate the WTO membership talks as well as to improve customs administration, to enforce the anti-corruption law and to adopt legislation for fighting money launder.

Air crash over the sea

The last week in Azerbaijan saw an air crash claiming 23 lives. Crashing was An-140 flying from Baku to Actau. The flight recorder was found after 2 days of search Dec 25. Ukrainian specialists came for investigation. AZAL state concern stopped all flights by An-140 and their planned import from Ukraine.

TURAN reports the flight recorder to be decoded at the Baku Airport, with its content reported to be in a satisfactory state.

The preliminary version says that the crash was due to control malfunction. But Ukraine seems to disagree. At least, this is suggested by the words of the Charge d’Affaires of Ukraine in Azerbaijan Igor Kizima, who “strongly objects to the statements about possible malfunction of An-140-100” and believes them to be “untimely”. In an interview to Trend, Kizima says that it is yet not clear how long it will take the commission to come to any results. Azeri Prime Minister Artur Rasizade has already chaired the first meeting of Ukrainian and Azeri experts and representatives of the international air committee. The commission is facing a huge work from seeing how well trained the pilots were to identifying the passengers, ad the baggage onboard and inquiring into climatic conditions. They may also see if there might be explosives onboard.

Zerkalo says: “The final picture of the crash will be received after the decoding of the ‘black box’. There can be no fraud as the box is a device recording automatically, constantly and quite independently all the parameters of a plane’s functioning and flight. This is to know the cause of each crash and to prevent one in the future. But still there is a worm of doubt in our hearts. The point is not the device but the people decoding it. When an exploding helicopter claimed the lives of many outstanding Azeri politicians Nov 20 1991, the ‘black box’ was sent for decoding to Moscow and ‘vanished’ quite mysteriously. Let’s believe that this time the ‘black box’ will not leave Azerbaijan, though who knows which is better in this case.”

Problem of Karabakh

A research group of The Economist believes that there is progress in the negotiating process for resolving the Karabakh conflict. They say that the most probable scenario is to resolve it in a package-stage by stage way, i.e. Armenia gives back 6 of 7 “occupied” districts to Azerbaijan, this followed by a referendum in Nagorno Karabakh in the subsequent 10-15 years for determining its status. The researchers also say that deployed in the conflict zone may be international peacekeeping forces comprising contingents from the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries.

“2005 has seen the Karabakh peace talks developing in the right direction,” the OSCE MG US co-chair, Ambassador Steven Mann says in an interview to Azadlyg radio. The diplomat says that with no elections in Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2006, their presidents will be able to give more attention to the conflict. As far as Mann knows, the Azeri and Armenian presidents have agreed on a new meeting in late January. He notes that they are now working to decide the venue and time of the meeting. “The co-chairs expect serious decisions from the meeting. The foreign ministries and the co-chairs have done a lot to bring positions closer. We are now on such a stage that, like in Kazan and Warsaw, there is a need for the presidents to meet personally,” he says. Mann says that the sides have got much closer in their positions in the framework of the Prague process in the last two years. But there are still big gaps, and Mann hopes that 2006 will give real chances for the sides to reduce their discords on the key issues. Mann says that the presidents are sincerely concerned for attaining peace agreement. He does not agree with the view that people in both countries are not ready for a compromise. “This year deciding on both sides must be not only governments but also peoples so as to improve the lives of those having suffered from the conflict,” he says.

Zerkalo says: "Judging from the statements by officials of the conflicting parties, Armenia and Azerbaijan seem to be trying to leave room for maneuver and way for retreat. There are several reasons for that… First, 2006, as say the international mediators and the conflicting parties themselves, is only “a window” for attaining real progress in the settlement. But any “window” can “get slammed” quite unexpectedly, especially before important electoral processes. The opposition in both Armenia and Azerbaijan can’t wait to see the government stumbling over something serious. Second, the sides are haggling over better peace conditions to be able to hold back “the storm of popular indignation” at the “defeatist peace”.

As it has become known from reliable diplomatic sources, the international mediators propose liberating the occupied territories according to the 5+1+1 scheme. That is, at first, within the 1.5-2 years after the signing of the peace agreement, liberated will be 5 districts in exchange for full rapprochement between the sides. While the other provisions are met, i.e. after Azerbaijan makes changes to its constitution to sanction a referendum on territorial issues in a separate region of the country, liberated will be Kalbajar. And finally, simultaneously with the referendum on Nagorno Karabakh, liberated will be Lachin. The issue of control over the Lachin corridor functioning will be considered separately.

Armenia accepts the scheme on the whole, but has certain doubts that it is expedient to liberate Lachin. Official Baku keeps insisting on liberating 6 districts at the very first stage. But there are more serious discords about when to carry out the second and third stages. Official Yerevan insists on implementing the agreement as quickly as possible – within 5 years and on Azerbaijan to make amendments to its constitutions by 2007, that is, by the next presidential election in Armenia. Official Baku is for more “moderate” pace, especially concerning the steps to amend the constitution and to hold a referendum in Nagorno Karabakh. In exchange, official Baku is ready to undertake serious commitments for economic development of NK. On the whole, official Baku proposes “extending” the implementation of the peace agreement for 15-20 years, its formal argument being that one cannot force people to vote on a serious issue until the confidence between the conflicting parties is restored. There is, obviously, certain logic in this approach. But one should admit that both Armenia’s attempts to maximally “shorten” and Azerbaijan’s efforts to “lengthen” the implementation of the peace agreement come from the political interests of their ruling elites. But the international mediators will try to argue them for 10 years…