AZERBAIJAN DESCENDING INTO THE THIRD WORLD AFTER A DECADE OF INDEPENDENCE

Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2004 by Rasizade, Alec

HEYDAR ALIEV: "L'ETAT, C'EST MOI!"

Our aging Indispensable Man in Baku, Heydar Aliev, who has failed to deliver on his fabulous promises to create, in his own words, a "Second Kuwait around Baku,"21 essentially runs the country as his private syndicate blandished by luminaries and supplicants from abroad. Political power often tends to increase the longer it is held. Aliev has been Azerbaijan's supreme ruler for the last 33 years since 1969, with a six-year break in 1987-1993.

After the death of Brejnev in 1982, the new Soviet leader Andropov made Aliev a Politburo member in Moscow, from where he was dismissed by Gorbachev in 1987. Some Politburo memoirists claim that the first Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and Baku in 1988 reflected this power struggle in the Kremlin and were orchestrated by Aliev's old cadre hoping to restore his leadership in Azerbaijan instead of Gorbachev's appointee A.R.Vezirov, who was "too honest for the organized corruption" in the republic.22

According to Aliev himself, he will again run for the presidency in 2003, when he turns 80 years old (in a country where average life expectancy is 63 years). "I have held the post of the president of Azerbaijan for nine years, and God willing, I will hold it for a long time," said Aliev, speaking in his native town of Nakhichevan.23

Political maneuvering within both the government and opposition blocs, however, is centered on one issue - the succession to Heydar Aliev. Given his age and declining health (he underwent heart surgery in 1999 in Cleveland), it is not believed that he will run again in 2003. Instead, his main concern seems to be to pave the way for his son Ilham to succeed him, something that has been discussed for several years.

As part of a careful process to legitimize him as the heir to the presidency, President Aliev proposed 39 separate amendments to constitution, and held a referendum on the proposed changes in August 2002. The government announced that 97% of voters, who participated in the referendum, endorsed those changes. Opposition politicians claimed that the authorities resorted to massive manipulation of the referendum outcome.

The most important amendments provide for transfer of presidential duties to the prime minister if the president dies, steps down, or is incapacitated. (Under the 1995 constitution, in such circumstances the president's duties devolved on the parliament speaker). The minimum number of votes a candidate must receive in the first round to be elected president is lowered from two-thirds of all votes cast to 50 percent plus one vote.

Local politicians unanimously construed that the rationale for the amendments is to enable Aliev to name his son as prime minister, a position in which he can succeed him as president. Under the constitution, it is the president who is empowered to appoint the premier, who is answerable to him, not to the legislature. Naming Ilham Aliev as prime minister would be one way to allow him to demonstrate his efficiency as an economic manager, at a time when increasing oil revenues could bring the long-hoped-for economic upswing.