Son for father

Vice-President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), member of parliament and head of the parliamentary delegation of Azerbaijan to PACE Ilham Heydar-ogly Aliyev has been nominated as a candidate for the presidency of Azerbaijan. To the expected 17 candidates for the highest post in the country, an 18th is thus added. Aliyev was nominated by an initiative group in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Region, the same one from where his father, the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, began his ascent to the presidency in the early nineties.

The nomination of Aliyev Jr. had been expected for a very long time - but rather as a successor to his father, and not as a rival, even a formal one. The fact that power in the Transcaucasian republic could be inherited has often been said since about 2000. Since last fall, conversations on this topic have become more serious - just then it became obvious that the “Baku v Tbilisi v Ceyhan” oil pipeline, the actual “supervisor” of which is Ilham Aliyev, began to grow from a purely political ghost project into a completely tangible commercial enterprise.

The heart attack that happened to Aliyev Sr. this spring right on the podium of a high meeting further increased Ilham’s chances of soon replacing his father. So much so that in early June, when the question arose about nominating a presidential candidate from the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, its functionaries were at a loss: some told reporters that they were nominating their father, others that son. In the end, my father became the party candidate. At this very time, the son was busy in Strasbourg: he persuaded and persuaded PACE to postpone until the fall, or rather “after the elections,” the adoption of any resolutions on political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

Other Azerbaijani politicians were also preparing for the elections; it was not possible to agree on a single opposition candidate; as a result, almost every party nominated its own candidate. Such “bison” of the opposition as the leader of the Musavat party and former speaker of parliament Isa Gambar, the head of the “reform” wing of the Popular Front Ali Karimli, another former speaker of parliament and head of the Democratic Party Rasul Guliyev have confirmed their intentions to run and have even already registered. Gambar and Karimli, according to available data, were recently invited for a conversation at the US State Department. Guliyev v too, but he doesn’t have to travel far - he has been living in America since 1996, since in his homeland charges of large-scale oil theft have been brought against him.

What the Americans were going to talk about with the oppositionists was not completely clear. Did they hope to “bet” on one of them, or did they simply explain to them how to behave during the pre-election period, so as not to destabilize the situation in a post-Soviet country that is very important for the United States? If the first is true, then Americans are clearly an unrealistic people. And the point is not only in the authoritarian style of government of the Aliyev family, which leaves no space for real political struggle, but also in the opposition itself.

Contrary to popular belief, Aliyev is not Turkmenbashi, who imprisons a subject for any careless look, much less a word. Opposition newspapers are published in Azerbaijan, non-governmental parties and political movements hold rallies where they angrily curse the ruling regime. And this very regime is fighting the opposition with very original methods. For example, state television shows a video of parliamentary sessions in 1993, in which the current opposition allies argue until they lose their pulse, blaming each other for the collapse of the Popular Front.

Despite all the differences, in the post-Soviet fate of the two ex-party bosses - Boris Yeltsin and Heydar Aliyev - there is one significant similarity: fate did not send them strong opponents. And if the son is indeed called upon to “insure” his father, then it is more likely in case of an unexpected deterioration in health, rather than a tangible attack from the opposition, which throughout the entire period of Aliyev’s rule never proposed any fresh, breakthrough ideas either for solving the Karabakh problem or to bring the country out of economic hibernation, which is only occasionally interrupted by external investments in the oil industry.

And there are realists in Washington and, most likely, Azerbaijani politicians were morally prepared for the continuation of their opposition fate. At the crossroads of the periodically escalating war against international terrorism, it is unlikely that they are ready to experiment with a radical change of horses.

If both Aliyevs reach the finish line of the election race, then the rivalry between father and son will at least somehow diversify the boring political landscape. In the absence of serious competing ideas and even personalities, elections in the post-Soviet space are increasingly becoming like a soap series, in the plot of which it is customary to play up family ties. In one Russian autonomy (Karachay-Cherkessia), a mother and son recently nominated themselves together: mother v for president, son v for vice president. True, they did not collect the required number of signatures there. Here the son and father compete. And, one way or another, they will probably have a common victory.