“Azerbaijan’s Presidential Elections”
A luncheon meeting with Isa Gambar, Chairman of Musavat Party
September 11, 2003
The Nixon Center, Washington, DC
At a National Democratic Institute (NDI)-The Nixon Center joint event, presidential candidate Isa Gambar urged the United States to push for free and fair elections in Azerbaijan. He asserted that if the next president does not have popular legitimacy, he will not be able to maintain stability in this secular, Muslim, oil-rich and pro-American country. Zeyno Baran, Director of International Security and Energy Programs, co-chaired the meeting with Nelson Ledsky, Senior Associate and Regional Director of Eurasia Programs at NDI.
October Elections and Azerbaijan’s Future
Isa Gambar urged the US to think about the upcoming elections not just in terms of who will become president for the next five years, but also as a turning point for Azerbaijan’s future. “One direction is promoted by the democratic forces like ours,” he argued, and aims to “work towards eliminating corruption, build a genuine free market economy, form a civil society that is respectful of human rights, and promote Azerbaijan’s further integration into the Euro Atlantic structures.” He called the other option “the transfer of power from father to son and the creation of the Aliyev family’s monarchy.”
Gambar highlighted that the Azerbaijani elections will also have impact on Georgia, which has parliamentary elections in November, and on Central Asian countries. Furthermore, if Azerbaijan goes toward a de facto hereditary presidency, it could have a negative impact on Iran’s large ethnic Azerbaijani population.
Gambar argued that Azerbaijan is today the most promising Muslim country to achieve genuine democracy other than Turkey. He explained that the Musavat Party was established in 1911 and that Azerbaijan created the first democratic regime in the Islamic world in 1918. He argued that peaceful transition of power in Azerbaijan will have a very positive impact on the whole Islamic world. On the other hand, he stated, if this experiment fails in Azerbaijan, it will be much harder to achieve democracy in other Muslim countries.
Ilham Aliyev’s election will also create problems inside Azerbaijan, Gambar said. Many Azerbaijanis have been hoping that with the departure of President Heydar Aliyev from the political scene, the regime would also disappear in favor of a democratic one. Thus, he explained, many people have placed their hopes in the 2003 elections and they could destabilize the country if the results are falsified. Gambar urged the audience not to think of the continuation of the Aliyev regime as a stable outcome, as “any stability is based on a police regime can not be stable.”
He underlined that a significant portion of Azerbaijan is under occupation, with nearly one million refugees, more than two of the eight million Azerbaijanis have left the country due to economic reasons. People want change, Gambar emphasized, and Ilham is weaker than his father to hold the existing system together.
In response to several questions on why the opposition failed to unite behind a single candidate ahead of the presidential elections, Gambar said he tried to get the opposition agree to hold primaries for this purpose two years ago, but there was no interest. Nonetheless, he said, it does not matter if there are more than one opposition candidates as long as the elections are held freely and fairly. Having already united 25 parties under his electoral block, Gambar believes he will get more than the 50 percent of the votes necessary to get to the second round.
Nagorno-Karabakh
Legitimacy of the president is also important to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Gambar said that Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian lost his legitimacy after the last elections. If the elections are also falsified in Azerbaijan, he reckoned, there will be two illegitimate presidents without the mandate of their peoples, and neither of them will be in a position to make compromises.
He nonetheless expressed hope for a political solution and downplayed calls for the resumption of war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Observing “the eight million Azerbaijanis and the five million Armenians have no relations because of 140,000 Armenians, who are living under a police regime in Karabakh,” Gambar said “we need to engage in real negotiations, not the imitations of negotiations.” If elected president, he would focus on two principles: territorial integrity of the country and the rights of the minorities. He promised to grant Armenian minority in Azerbaijan the same rights as those provided by Western democratic countries to their national minorities.
In response to a question on Russian-Azerbaijani relations, Gambar said that in Azerbaijan there used to be constant fear about Russia regaining control of the country, but this danger no longer exits. The independence of the South Caucasus has become irreversible, and the current Russian leadership understands today’s realities, he stated. While keeping good relations with Russia, he would further integrate Azerbaijan into the Euro-Atlantic structures, such as NATO, which he reminded, was an idea first proposed by the Musavat Party. In fact, since the second half of the 1940’s, the Musavat Party always supported closer ties with United States, Gambar added.
U.S. and International Attention
Gambar expressed his disappointment in the international community, and especially the United States, for turning a blind eye to the recent developments in Azerbaijan. “People are losing their belief that the US is genuinely committed to democracy Azerbaijan,” he warned.
This belief was strengthened, Gambar argued, following a congratulatory letter from President George W. Bush to Ilham Aliyev upon his appointment as Prime Minister by his father. While Gambar recognized that this appointment is in accordance with the Azerbaijani constitution, he considers the move un-democratic. Moreover, he said, “We thought US presidents congratulate those who have been elected to the post of leadership, not those who are appointed.”
Certain that the Aliyev clan will falsify the election results, Gambar urged the US to send a clearer and more credible message in favor of free and fair elections as well as more election observers, including Members of Congress. He also asked the international community to speak out against a new law forbidding domestic non-governmental organizations that receive more than 30 percent of their funding from abroad to monitor elections.
This program brief was prepared by Nixon Center intern Yasemin Sener.
