Aliyev hints on early elections

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in a veiled form gave a start to the preparation for the early presidential elections, which can be held at the end of this year.

On October 7 at a Cabinet meeting on the results of socio-economic development over the first nine months of 2016, in the introductory part of the meeting, Aliyev harshly condemned the West on a number of points including double standards towards Azerbaijan, the Islamic world, the Arab refugees, and so on.

The theme of his speech at the beginning was not connected with the theme of the government which has nothing to say on the disastrous results of nine months, and became a kind of message to global democracy that the regime in Azerbaijan prefers at this stage of development to keep a distance, which is to be limited to elements of cooperation, but not integration processes.

Experience shows that since the 2008 presidential election, which opened the following way for him to unlimited rule, on the eve of important elections Aliyev strengthens criticism against the West in order to minimize the participation of its institutions in the monitoring and vote counting, as well as support of the opposition and civil society. The same happened before the referendum on September 26, which legitimizes his rule for the next seven years and gives him even greater authority and responsibility.

Aliyev"s such isolationist position, though seems strange at first glance, is understood in the opposite camp of international democracy, which only in the formal and soft form expresses its usual surprise with undemocratic process, but no more. This was most clearly shown before and after the last referendum, which suggests that this event opens the way to serious structural, political and economic changes, agreed by the West. (This is evidenced by the fact that a lot of pressure on Aliyev from the United States and its allies demanding reform the system has stopped immediately after the announcements on referendum on July 18 about the changes to the constitution extending the powers of the president.)

This line of conduct, no doubt, will be continued at the upcoming presidential elections and the electoral process by itself will become almost a technical procedure, but not a political competition of various groups of government and opposition.

Aliyev"s stay in power suits the West, despite his anti-Western statements and the suppression of opposition voices. During his reign, he greatly linked economic ties with Europe, supporting strategic energy, pipeline, transportation projects of the European Union, making the West the main economic partner of Azerbaijan. Taking into account that the energy sector is a basic for Azerbaijan, it is not difficult to see Azerbaijan"s integration despite all the anti-Western rhetoric by Aliyev.

It is no secret that the parties continue intensive work on further reform of the post-Soviet system in Azerbaijan and preparation of a large package of reforms that will have to start in the near future. The referendum, and the following choices are an integral part of the reform program, which is permitted by the parties. Aliyev and Western partners do not open cards of future changes, and yet release very little information, which can only form weaker contours of changes. It can be understood from the speech of the president Aliyev on the results of the meeting, which has not announced the results of the past nine months. This final part the president dedicated to future projects, primarily in the field of agriculture. From his speech it was clear that the talk is about individual large-scale projects on development of each agricultural sector, where the European Union has already started to implement programs to support the development of private producers.

In fact, the reform in the non-oil sector in Azerbaijan in terms of long-term reduction of the impact of the energy sector on the economy, becomes inevitable for the regime, and we can say it is the second largest program of integration of Azerbaijan to the West after the start of the realization of the Contract of the Century signed in 1994. At a government meeting Aliyev almost recognized the difficult situation in the Azerbaijani economy, and did not juggling the numbers of statistics, which in all respects form a deplorable vision of the situation.

Despite all the anti-Western rhetoric Azerbaijan does not any other way, but integration into the European space. As it was mentioned previously, this indicates intensive negotiations with international financial institutions to support reforms in Azerbaijan, which has already entered the final stage on the fundamental issues of further integration into the world, first of all the Western economy with all the political consequences.