Is President Ilham Aliyev's Power Base Wobbling?

[Stracker]

Azerbaijan: Is President Ilham Aliyev's Power Base Wobbling?

By Jean-Christophe Peuch

Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic

June 11 2004

Members of the Azerbaijani government and other state officials have

been trading accusations of corruption and other misdeeds through the

media for the past few weeks. Indications that political jockeying

among the ruling elite may be intensifying have, in turn, fueled

speculation about President Ilham Aliyev's ability to control his team.

Prague, 11 June 2004 (RFE/RL) -- In Baku, a power struggle among the

country's top leadership is the talk of the town.

The political jockeying kicked off a few months ago with a media

campaign directed at Baku Mayor Hacibala Abutalibov.

The "Azerbaycan" official newspaper published an article criticizing

Abutalibov for failing to regulate the city's expansion and improve

communal services. Other attacks soon followed, blaming the Baku mayor

for building fountains during a water shortage and demolishing the

city's commercial kiosks, a move that left many unemployed."Everyone

was expecting that after the October elections Ilham Aliyev would

launch a few purges and that all of those officials who were tainted

with corruption and bribe-taking...would be progressively replaced

with younger reformist cadres. Unfortunately, [ilham Aliyev's]

cadre policy is the same as that of the previous president."

A former deputy prime minister, Abutalibov was appointed Baku mayor

in January 2001 by then President Heydar Aliyev.

Like the late head of state, Abutalibov was born in Nahcivan, an

Azerbaijani exclave in Armenia that has been virtually cut off from

the rest of the country since the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict broke

out in the late 1980s.

Abutalibov reportedly belongs to the so-called Nahcivani clan, an

informal grouping of political leaders that dominated Azerbaijan's

political life for most of Heydar Aliyev's rule.

For many years, a power struggle positioned representatives of the

Nahcivani clan against government officials originating from Armenia,

known in Azerbaijan as Yeraz.

Fragmentation along regional lines has also affected the ruling Yeni

Azerbaycan (New Azerbaijan) party.

Yet, Heydar Aliyev never allowed infighting to become public, let alone

to make headlines. But his son, Ilham, who took over the presidency

after last October's СПОРed polls, has failed to prevent the feuding

from coming into the open.

Eldar Namazov, who served as a close aide to Heydar Aliyev in the

1990s, tells our correspondent the political succession brought a

major change in domestic politics.

"That at the top of the executive different groups are vying for

influence has long been an open secret. These groups do exist,

and in this respect Azerbaijan is no exception. The problem is that

Heydar Aliyev, who was a shrewd politician, was able to arbiter these

conflicting interests. Never before had this infighting become so

obvious. In any case, it had never made the headlines of newspapers

or was discussed on television. But the situation has changed since

the last elections. These groups are now openly trading accusations,

and the problem has become much more acute than it used to be under

Heydar Aliyev," Namazov said.

Since the first attacks targeting the mayor appeared in the media,

Baku residents have witnessed a string of campaigns aimed at vilifying

a number of government officials, including Education Minister Misir

Mardanov, Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov, Health Minister Ali

Insanov, and Customs State Committee Chairman Kamaletdin Heydarov.

Media reports indicate the current СПОРe once again pits members of

the Nahcivani clan against their traditional Yeraz rivals. However,

"blood connection" is no longer a deciding factor.

Sahin Abbasov is deputy editor in chief of the Baku-based independent

"Ekho" newspaper. He says political clans are no longer solely

organized along regional relationships.

"The situation is much more intricate to- Regional belonging is no

longer the driving force behind these groups. Different sub-groups

with different interests have formed within these regional groups,

and today it is more financial interests that link people together,"

Abbasov said.

Analysts believed that, after the election, Aliyev would bring in a

new team that would progressively evict the presidential "old guard."

Yet, with the exception of Foreign Minister Vilayat Quliyev and a

few middle-ranking officials, the 42-year-old Azerbaijani leader has

kept most of his father's ministers and advisers. He even reappointed

former Prime Minister Artur Rasuzade -- whom he had replaced a few

months earlier at that position -- to head the government.

Former presidential aide Namazov, who heads a nongovernmental

organization known as Civic Forum, says Aliyev is now paying the

price for failing to bring in new blood.

"Everyone was expecting that after the October elections Ilham Aliyev

would launch a few purges and that all of those officials who were

tainted with corruption and bribe-taking, or those who were holding

very conservative political views and opposing democratic values,

would be progressively replaced with younger reformist cadres.

Unfortunately, [ilham Aliyev's] cadre policy is the same as that of

the previous president. These groups are now fighting each other

to preserve their corporatist interests, and this poses a serious

problem to Azerbaijan," Namazov said.

Among the factors that have contributed to the present situation,

political analysts cite Ilham Aliyev's lack of experience in pulling

the strings of shadow politics. They also point to the vacuum left

by Heydar Aliyev's death, which brought an end to the apparent

cohesiveness of the ruling team needed to ensure a smooth political

transition.

But these are not the only reasons.

Before the ballot, most experts predicted the opposition would pay

a high political price for failing to unite behind a single candidate.

The crushing defeat suffered by Musavat Party leader Isa Qambar and the

police crackdown that followed the СПОРed polls profoundly modified

Azerbaijan's political landscape. Today, the opposition is a mere

shadow of its former self and, despite Aliyev's offers of dialogue,

remains under constant threat of renewed harassment.

"Ekho" deputy editor in chief Abbasov believes Aliyev has fallen

victim to his own success against the opposition.

"Before the elections, there was an opposition. One can argue whether

this opposition was strong or weak, but it had a certain influence.

After the elections, the opposition has been wiped out and the

political struggle that before pitted the party in power against

the opposition has moved and is now limited to the ruling elite,"

Abbasov says.

Political infighting has reached such a scale as to become a potential

embarrassment to the Azerbaijani leader. Aliyev recently entered the

fray, warning he would not let himself be influenced by "politically

motivated" newspaper articles.

Whether he will be able to stop the political infighting and restore

control over his father's team remains uncertain, however.

"One thing is clear," Abbasov says. "The system that was elaborated

by Heydar Aliyev is starting to misfire. Will this have serious

consequences? It is too early to say. In any case, this 'war of

compromising materials' that is splashing across the front pages of

newspapers shows that the system is misfiring and that something needs

to be done. Everyone expects the president to do something about it

and try to reassert his control, either by structurally changing the

system, or by appointing new people."

In a report released last month, the International Crisis Group said,

"Azerbaijan's ruling elite is increasingly divided, with several

clans competing for control of a pyramidal distribution structure

that allows substantial funds to be skimmed from the oil business."

"Ilham Aliyev needs to embrace the democratic process and dismantle

autocratic rule," the Brussels-based think tank added, saying that

his "best chance" to achieve this objective is "to nurture a new

generation of technocratic professionals while steadily dismantling

the corrupt patronage network that strangles politics and keeps the

economy overly dependent on oil."

Yet, critics doubt Aliyev is willing to change the system. They point

to the president's failure to deliver on pre-election pledges and

the conflicting signals he has been sending since the ballot on his

commitment to reforms.

Former presidential aide Namazov fears Aliyev's attempts to reassert

his authority over the ruling elite may not be sufficient.

"The exasperation of these clannish wars is, of course, a problem on

the tactical level for the country's leadership because it undermines

its prestige in the eyes of society and contributes to blackening the

image of the government. This is why I think there will certainly

be attempts to put out these wars. But this does not mean that

the problem will be solved. Should these clans strike a deal to

redistribute economic resources among themselves, that would neither

meet the interests of society nor those of the country. This is not

what our society is expecting," Namazov says.

"What is needed is the political will to reform the country," Namazov

adds. "If there is political will, I believe the rest will follow, and

the conservative part of the top leadership will be doomed to failure."

[Orhan-nud-Din]

Брат пиши по-русски или по Азербайджански. Не у всех есть английские переводы и не все знают английский язык!

[Stracker]

Я искал текст на русском но не нашел вот сайт на русском

http://www.svoboda.org/

В принципе ничего нового не сказано просто интересно освящение как отражаются события в Азербайджане в иностранных СМИ.