Disbandment the clan in Azerbaijan

The arrest of two former ministers in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (NAR) caused many questions not only in Azerbaijan, but also abroad. Nakhchivan is a special territory. The roots of the regime in Azerbaijan stretch from Nakhchivan, and they have always played a great role in the system of power, like in the Soviet Azerbaijan.

On March 9, it became known about the arrest of ex-Minister of Internal Affairs of the NAR, Lieutenant General Ahmed Ahmedov, who ruled the Nakhchivan police for 17 years, and ex-Minister of Education Mamed Garibov. His ministerial experience was not so high from 2016 to 2018. The prosecutor's office did not make loud statements, which is usually inherent in it, limiting the confirmation of the fact of the arrest.

The last time a ministerial official was imprisoned in Nakhchivan in 2016. It was the ex-minister of security, Great Askerov, who had been in charge of the Nakhchivan security officers for 15 years. The arrested ex-minister was charged with the following Articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan: embezzlement of state property (179.3.2), abuse of position (308.1) and 309.1 (abuse of power). Later, a new charge of illegal wiretapping appeared - Article 308.2. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. As you can see, the reason for the arrest was financial and economic misconduct, and its reason lay in wiretapping. That is, the matter was political. Wiretapping is a common thing in the authorities, and security officials are not arrested for this. This arrest meant that high-profile individuals were tapped and should not have been tapped.

 Then this case was connected with the resignation and home imprisonment of the Minister of National Security of Azerbaijan Eldar Mahmudov, with whom Askerov had close working and non-working ties. The media also named unauthorized wiretapping of the country's top leadership as the reason for Mahmudov's resignation.

The history of Azerbaijan has many facts of intra-governmental struggle for dominance in the state administration system. All the recent high-profile landings of the heads of the executive branch, former and non-former ministerial officials, testify to the urgency of this problem within the walls of the current regime.

"It is wrong to say that the events coincide with the cadres in all echelons of power." They have gained momentum since the appointment of Mehriban Aliyeva as First Vice President, who looks from the outside, carries out cleaning and placement of personnel not according to the clan principle, a completely new system of coordinates, where education and personal dedication to common interests comes to the fore.

Until now, this practice has been widely used in Azerbaijan and has somewhat bypassed Nakhchivan, the course of which has apparently already begun - autonomy is being adapted to new extra-clan relations, which in general can be called a positive, although it changes little in the undemocratic approaches to governing the country.

The recent arrests in Nakhchivan can be viewed from the prism, and not from the point of view of the inter-clan struggle. It is testified by preservation of the strong positions of the Nakhchivanis in the power structure - the head of the government, the State Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and others. Although there may be other views on the situation, which few people voice?