Experts at Crisis Crossroads

The causes of the deep economic crisis and ways out of it were discussed at a meeting of experts at the headquarters of the REAL movement.

In such a difficult time for Azerbaijan it is necessary to unite efforts of specialists and experts in various fields to provide guidance and specific steps to overcome the crisis, the economist Natig Jafarli said, opening the meeting.

The political scientist Zardusht Alizadeh doubted that the decisions of the meeting would be ever heard by the authorities, which cannot adequately respond to the crisis and continue to make mistakes, compounding the situation. "The government has never made compromise and, most likely, will continue to rely on the police baton argument," he concluded.

In general, the meeting showed two prevailing approaches, i.e. to focus on the work with the community to prevent ungoverned public revolts, and second - to undertake dialogue with the authorities through the development of a package of proposals.

 A businessman, ex-MP Nazim Mammadov believes that there is a need to support the President in the current situation, as he is "isolated and experiencing pressure from certain offensive team members."

According to observations of Turan IA, for the one-year period after the start of the financial crisis in Azerbaijan, the President's actions were not systemic. In the context of triple drop in oil prices and double devaluation of the national currency his team continued to delay the generation of anti-crisis measures. Some glimpses of the first anti-crisis steps became apparent only after the government meeting on 10 January.

The political scientist Arastun Orujlu, who is also skeptical about the sequence of actions by the authorities to implement reforms, considered important the consolidation of the expert community, calling the meeting of experts "scrapping the ice." "Only the consolidation of society is able to push the government to real change," said Orujlu.

A more optimistic scenario was presented by the expert Mehman Aliyev. It is based on the factor of the end of the oil era in Azerbaijan. He looked back into the 1990s, which were characterized by greater freedom in all areas despite the low oil revenues. Today we are back to the same situation, but in a future, completely new dimension, in the context of the new world of reformist tendencies, he said.

At the first meeting of experts, observations and suggestions were made by Elkhan Shahinoglu, Rahman Badalov, Alaskar Mammadov, Azer Gasimli, Khalid Bagirov, Azer Mehdiyev and others.

The political analyst Erkin Gadirli proposed to develop a range of topics that may be subject to the following anti-crisis debate. Another expert meeting should come no later than in two weeks, or earlier with the requirements of the moment. -0-