Force and Power during the Transaction Period

Ramil Usubov, who for 24 years headed the Interior Ministry, was appointed Security Council Secretary. Previously, this post was part-time performed by the head of the Presidential Administration, the patriarch of the Soviet party nomenclature, Ramiz Mehdiyev, who due to health reasons and conditions of the increased centralization of administration management by the president is not as active as in past years.

On Usubov"s position was appointed his pupil and a devoted colleague, and the first deputy, 51-year-old Vilayat Eyvazov, who had been in charge of combating trafficking for many years, attracting keen interest of the international community.

The head of the State Security Service, a professional police officer with the title of National Hero Madat Guliyev, was appointed head of the Ministry of Defense Industry reconstituted yesterday, which will allow him to increase control over the equipment and condition of army weapons, and indirectly over the military, with whom he does not have even relations. Quite a fresh example, "Terter case", when a group of officers was tortured and killed on the trumped-up charges of the military command and the military prosecutor"s office. The case was solved by the SGB, and the officers were rehabilitated.

Guliyev"s place was taken by professional security officer Ali Nagiyev, until yesterday the Deputy head of the anti-corruption department at the Prosecutor General"s Office, who is returning to his native walls, where there is a need for experienced professional personnel and the need to restructure the system to meet modern requirements and challenges. Nagiyev has already headed the secret service as a first deputy minister.

Challenges

This strengthening of the KGB-police system, where the venerable policeman becomes the main coordinator, immaculately ensuring the iron order in the country, says that the state and society are entering a period of serious tests that require the mobilization of the state machine.

Serious tests form the socio-economic crisis, the growing discontent of all sectors of society, the growing public expectations of reforms, expanding information freedom.

External tests are manifested in the demand of the West for reform, Russian discontent with the strengthening of the West in the region, the deepening Iran-US crisis.

One should not disregard the possibility of a power transaction from the president to the first vice president Mehriban Aliyeva, who is increasingly beginning to dominate the political field and around which a bloc of young personnel, a post-Soviet formation, is formed, and which is most capable of meeting the requirements of the day.

These people today are involved in the process of structural transformation and reform, but differing in inconsistency, which is dictated by the internal contradictions of the clans and the struggle between necessity and unwillingness to reform. The transaction may take a relative period and therefore such a process will require the support of the power block in the event of a sharp intensification of opponents of the regime and dissatisfied social groups.

In any case, we notice that the process, which was sluggishly gaining momentum after the start of a systemic crisis in 2015, is becoming more dynamic and dramatic. The dynamics can be traced in the pressure of the West in the area of ​​obligations and promises and in the pressure of society, which can be traced to the growing number of protest actions and the increasing information attack of the opposition on high officials, where the government loses in terms of Internet freedom.

In subsequent periods, we should witness new steps by the president to optimize the state governance system, as well as in the field of social preferences for the population. In relations with the West, the authorities will try as much as possible to delay the fulfillment of obligations, the implementation of which, as she believes, can weaken the foundations of the regime under the conditions of a system and power transaction. The power will also distance itself from other centers of power in order to prevent the balance from shifting, which it has traditionally done so far.