Azerbaijan: Major Political Events of 2018

1.11.04. Presidential elections in Azerbaijan.

2. 21.04. The parliament approved Novruz Mamedov for the post of prime minister.

3. April 26. The 219-page Report of the Independent Investigative Authority on allegations of corruption was adopted in PACE at the plenary session after a heated debate. Azerbaijani authorities among the main defendants.

4. 03.07. In Ganja, a native of the city, Yunis Safarov, attempted to assassinate the chief executive Elmar Veliyev, seriously wounding him.

5. 11.07. European Union High Representative for External Relations and Security Policy, Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, Elmar Mammadyarov, announced the completion of negotiations on priorities for partnership between the EU and Azerbaijan. The initialing the document took place in the presence of the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.

6. August 13 - The Sheki Appeal Court decided on the conditional release of the party leader REAL Ilgar Mamedov.

7. 24.10. Azerbaijan was visited by Advisor to the President of the United States on National Security John Bolton.

8. 09.11. The Norwegian government closed the embassy in Azerbaijan.

9. 11.12. The steering committee of the international organization Open Government (OGP) at its meeting on December 5 in Washington retained the inactive status of Azerbaijan in this organization.

10. 14.12. British investigators froze bank accounts worth several billion dollars due to money laundering in Azerbaijan.

2018 year: parallels of the acceleration policy

The outgoing 2018, perhaps, can be described for Azerbaijan as contradictory in all respects, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy.

The internal political process demonstrated internal power tensions that were projected onto social life. The start to this process was given by the early presidential elections on April 11. Unclear explanations of representatives of the President Ilham Aliyev"s team about the reasons for holding early elections and the subsequent political dynamics showed that the decision gave a start to speeding up the reformatting of the Aliyev administration in both institutional and personnel terms. Apparently, the recent crisis phenomena, manifested in early 2015 and protracted afterwards, pushed Aliyev to take more decisive steps for the final cleaning the team from the old staff and the rules of relations. We also observed a growing concentration of power and capital in the hands of the president, as well as the formation of a parallel team or center of power in the person of the first vice president, Mehriban Aliyeva, and even to some extent the transaction of a part of the power mechanisms under her control.

This line on the domestic front was marked by pressure on team members such as Emergencies Minister K. Heydarov, presidential assistant Ali Hasanov and appointment to high posts persons loyal to the presidential couple: Novruz Mamedov, who received the post of prime minister, Mikayil Jabbarov - Minister of Taxes, Eldar Azizov - Baku"s mayor, etc.

At the same time, pressure on society grew, especially that part of society, which showed excessive critical activity in information networks that became a headache and an influential alternative to the state ideological machine. Arrests, blocking websites, and hacking accounts, the formation of an army of low-level trolls, aggressive mutual destructive information war, became a hallmark of the political processes of the year.

The authorities tried to neutralize any encroachments that could hinder the policy of accelerating the restructuring of the state machine of President Aliyev. We can say that the year ended with some preparatory work, which should be completed in 2019.

Foreign policy developed in unison with the events inside the country. External events seemed to drive Aliyev"s actions and worked to speed up the process of internal perturbation. On the one hand, international investigations concerning dirty money as an aspect of Azerbaijan"s foreign policy, and on the other hand, quite respectable negotiations on European integration, which were reflected in the document on priorities of the partnership between the EU and Azerbaijan initiated on July 11.

All subsequent foreign policy relations were formed in this vein, which was reflected in the new scandalous revelations of the "Azerbaijani laundry" and visits of distinguished guests such as the German Chancellor, the US National Security Advisor to the President, and others.

The contours of the fact that after the events in Armenia, the problem of democracy and reforms in Azerbaijan has become even more relevant manifest themselves, which makes the conclusion of the 2019 EU Partnership Agreement and the beginning of some kind of cautious democratization process that will not go along with economic reforms, but waddle in their tail. This does not quite correspond to Aliyev"s assurances of the parallel implementation of reforms in politics and economics, made by him in early 2018. It can be assumed that this statement was voiced in favor of the West, which gently insists on parallel reforms. But in any case, in 2019, Aliyev will have to take more into account the recommendations of the "parallel process" in order to smooth out the negatives of Western impulses in the form of corruption disclosures in Azerbaijan.