Campaign posters, Baku, Republic of Azerbaijan © Sitara Ibrahimova / Eurasianet

With just a day to go before Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, the BBC reports that campaigning has been tense and controversial. Nearly 2,000 candidates are running for 125 seats in the Azerbaijani parliament.

On Friday, the last day of campaigning, only one party has been allowed to mark it publicly.

The ruling New Azerbaijan Party is preparing for a rally in support of the government of President Ilham Aliyev.

The opposition Freedom bloc say they were refused permission to hold a similar event in the same square.

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail says that the opposition’s chances of enacting regime change in Azerbaijan are slim. It also warns that if the vote is marred by serious irregularities and the West does not respond appropiately, ordinary Azeris might turn their backs on Europe and look towards Islam.

The Freedom, or Azadliq, coalition doesn’t have much of a platform besides campaigning against corruption and unemployment. The coalition also lacks a leader, because the strongest opposition figure, Rasul Guliyev, a former oil baron who now leads Mr. Jalaloglu’s party, remains in self-imposed exile in the United States.

He tried to fly home to Baku last month but turned his plane around at the last moment. He said the government refused him permission to land, but others say he got cold feet when he heard about police detaining hundreds of his supporters and promising to arrest him at the airport.

And while the opposition looks weak, an even bigger hurdle to pulling off an orange-tinged revolution is the fact that the West has a lot to lose if it gambles on a regime change in Azerbaijan. The United States is rumoured to want a stronger military presence in the country (especially after Uzbekistan closed a U.S. airbase this year) because of Azerbaijan’s strategic location on the Iranian border.

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More important, Western companies have invested billions of dollars in Azerbaijan to build offshore oil platforms and a pipeline running from Baku, through Georgia, to a Turkish port.

Azerbaijan’s political opposition has received far less assistance from outside the country than similar movements in Ukraine and Georgia because of fears about jeopardizing these interests, said Murad Gassanly, a political consultant for the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party.

“The West is making a mistake thinking that short-term stability is more important than long-term democracy,” Mr. Gassanly said.

Perhaps this is one reason why, according to Eurasianet, secular Turkey is urging Aliyev to allow free and fair elections tomorrow.

Given that elections were the detonators for so-called “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past two years, Azerbaijan’s parliamentary vote has been surrounded by discussion about possible unrest. […]. Turkish leaders are anxious to see that the elections don’t produce instability. Accordingly, Ankara has sought to cajole President Ilham Aliyev’s administration in Baku into embracing electoral transparency.

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During a November 1 news conference in Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul sought to reinforce this message. “The November 6 elections in Azerbaijan are very important, and are being monitored by Turkey closely and with interest,” Gul said. “Azerbaijan will be much stronger if the elections are conducted in an orderly and transparent manner. Azerbaijan’s position on the international stage would be strengthened [if transparent and orderly elections are held].”

Eurasianet also says that now attention is slowly turning to the post-election period, especially if the opposition believe the vote is rigged.

Any such attempt to stage a mass opposition rally would set-up a potentially violent clash with authorities. Azerbaijani police will be on high alert through November 10, Interior Minister Ramil Usubov told journalists on October 29. Yashar Aliyev, Baku’s deputy police chief told ANS television on November 3 that the high alert will involve “enhanced security measures for the protection of government buildings and foreign embassies, as well as foreign organization offices in Baku, foreign observers and state and private television stations.” On election day November 6, large contingents of police will be posted near all polling places. If there are no disturbances, the heavy police presence will be lifted during the early morning of November 7.

However, Vladimir Socor, writing for the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, says that because of these concerns about potential unrest in Baku, the moderate opposition in Azerbaijan has been ignored by the international media.

Azerbaijan’s moderate opposition has been relegated to undeserved obscurity in terms of international media coverage and Western policy assessments of the situation in Azerbaijan. The attention has focused on the radicals because of their confrontational tactics and “revolutionary” phraseology. Meanwhile, the moderate opposition’s Yeni Siyasat (New Policy, YES) bloc is fielding candidates in 69 out of the 125 single-mandate electoral districts. Opposing any revolution for its destabilizing effects, the YES bloc calls for reforms through evolution and public accord.

Well, interesting days and whatever the outcome, parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan will undoubtedly have an influence on the future direction of Armenia, another country that to date has been unable to hold free, fair and democratic elections.