Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend / Trend interview with the President of the Social Design Foundation's President Rashad Rzaguliyev:
Question: According to many local and foreign experts, the results of the upcoming presidential elections in Azerbaijan are very predictable. Why is there such a unanimous assurance that Ilham Aliyev will win?
Answer: Let's imagine - we want to establish an ideal political system. The core of it can be explained in several ways, but two conditions are necessary. The first one is the universality of the system. Not depending on how much people are involved - two, three or eight and a half millions - the system should operate without failure. Right? And the second condition is that the system should make consistent decisions to be understandable to anyone. Otherwise, it is not a system, just nonsense. Now you can add anything to these two necessary conditions. For instance, the ideas of liberalism and democracy, the ideals of Islam or proletariat dictatorship - that only will smooth the general idea and will change nothing. Ideal political system means universality and consistent decisions.
It does not matter whether we want that or not, but owing to President Ilham Aliyev, both the factors have been distinctly fixed in the current political system of Azerbaijan. These factors envisage active dynamics of the social and economic development and democratic modernization of the country. But by the same simple reason, there is no 'political opposition' in the country, which is a very important element for development.
I do not take into consideration a group of relic opposition politicians and their activists, whose prestige has been reduced to zero due to natural and objective reasons of historical character - the climate in the country has dramatically changed. In new conditions they do not blend with the political climate of the country and are considered by the majority of the population to be rather living monuments of the recent history than functioning politicians.
Moreover, there is no new opposition generation. The opposition needs brains no less than the authorities do. Strict thinking discipline is required. An ideal element of the modern political system should be pragmatic, well-educated and clever. Unfortunately, no one in the contemporary opposition has all these qualities simultaneously. The new generation, who have the full set of these qualities, prefer high-liquid business carrier or working in the secure team of the President. So, unfortunately, the availability of good opponents to the authorities is a rather important factor for development of democratic institutes.
That is why Ilham Aliyev, as the developer of ideas of new state management for Azerbaijan for 2008, is absolutely irreplaceable. President Aliyev's policy is the policy of pure centrism and sub-optimal decisions.
Question: The elections in Azerbaijan are following the presidential elections in Georgia, Armenian and Russia. These electoral circles are somehow demonstrative, aren't they?
- Yes, but the schemes of the elections are quite different.
The elections in Georgia reflected serious contradictions in the country's social and political life. Mikhail Saakashvili failed to provide stable operation of the political system. Considering the aggravating mass tensions, Saakashvili managed to keep the situation under control through cooperation with the opposition, though it was very difficult and resulted in great reputation losses.
The elections in Armenia are a different scheme. There is another wave of national liberation struggle of the Armenian people for independence, which the country lost after the Karabakh organized crime group seized power. The governing faction seems not to surrender without a struggle. Gerrymandering at the elections following public protests led to bloody events and unveiled the real 'face' of the Karabakh military junta of 'democrats'. Anyway, the situation in Armenia is far from over.
As to the elections in the Russian Federation, the things are clear and predictable. The power matrix created by the 'Vladimir Putin' project regenerated a new project - 'Vladimir Putin 2 - Dmitriy Medvedev'. The team of reformists which provided a revival in Russia during the recent eight years will continue the previous course with the support of the absolute majority of voters.
Question: Are there forces to which breakdown of the presidential elections in Azerbaijan can be advantageous?
Answer: Surely. First of all, those are the forces connected with the Armenian political-financial lobby and diaspora system, who are striving to disgrace Azerbaijan with its undemocratic political system in order to somehow justify the occupation of the Azerbaijani land.
Secondly, there are geopolitical centres, which do not like Azerbaijan's foreign policy in terms of 'geopolitical pluralism' which completely corresponds with our national interests. Some forces want to turn Azerbaijan into the outpost of fighting with the Islamic Republic of Iran, to oppose Azerbaijan to its fraternal Turkey, Georgia and to split Azerbaijan. All those forces will probably try to play their game at the presidential elections of 2008.
Although, we have serious foes, all their attempts so far to force Azerbaijan to their knees have failed. The elections of this year will not be an exception.