Film about Mehman Huseynov on TV Channel Present Time

Baku / 06.15.20 / Turan: The Present Time television channel broadcasting from Prague made a film about the Azerbaijani candidate blogger Mehman Huseynov, titled Candidate.

The film Candidate is a political detective, a road movie and a documentary drama about the battle with power, which is conducted alone by a simple guy from the Internet.

He is not afraid to be funny. A smile is a trademark of the politician, the blogger, just a person who is not afraid. The hero of the new documentary project, Present Time, Mehman Huseynov is not afraid of threats from officials whose luxurious villas are filmed on the phone, or the police who twist his hands. And even to a deadly disease he answers with a joke.

There is a fresh post on Mehman’s Instagram - a photo in a rabbit costume. It’s not immediately clear where he is. This is a ward for cancer patients in a Swiss clinic. Since the beginning of June, doctors have been fighting for his life there.

Corruption is the topic on which Mehman earned his first political capital, as well as political persecution. As part of his SANCAQ project (translated from Azerbaijani “pin”), he spoke about the theft of budget money and about the chic life of Azerbaijani officials and oligarchs close to power. Hence the analogy with the «Azerbaijani Navalny» - the formation of his career took place at the junction between the opposition video blogger and the aspiring politician.

As soon as Mehman Huseynov was released after two years in prison, in the spring of 2019, he immediately returned to political activism. Last December, he organized a protest rally demanding the release of a rapper known in the country. For this, Mehman himself was taken away in an unknown direction, beaten, tortured, and thrown into a wasteland 150 kilometers from Baku. It would seem that the strength and courage to return to the struggle after this would not remain. But Mehman went even further and entered the political race.

The film Candidate is about it. We see Mehman’s fascinating campaign ahead of the parliamentary vote — how the authorities are trying to prevent a popular oppositionist and to bribe him, how they do not allow him to campaign, tear down his posters, issue fake statements, run away from cameras, hide their faces and close their cabinet doors.

The film Candidate is a kind of manual on elections in an authoritarian country, where the power, which hides from ordinary people behind the fences of expensive villas, is afraid of honest conversation, surrounds itself with security, and puts close relatives in leadership positions. A simple thirty year old guy is trying to break this system.

The premiere of the film took place on the TV channel Present Time on June 15.

Present Time is a television channel created by Radio Liberty / Radio Free Europe with the participation of Voice of America. –06D-