A quick look at Wikipedia’s electoral calendar confirms one thing. Perhaps rather poignantly, the Year of the Rat is definitely shaping up as the year of elections. That’s certainly the case in the South Caucasus where today Georgians vote in a presidential election, but also for Armenia which will hold its own next month. And in October, Azerbaijan will also hold a presidential election, and as in the other two South Caucasus republics, the opposition doesn’t look likely to stand much of a chance at all.

Christine Quirk at Asking Tough Questions in Tough Places looks ahead to the presidential election in Azerbaijan and attempts to debunk five myths about the political situation in the country. As the former Country Director for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Azerbaijan, her opinion and analysis is interesting to say the least.

Did you like Russia’s election? Get used to that model because many of the same strategies and tactics will be used by Azerbaijan’s ruling party (YAP) in the October 2008 Presidential election. I doubt, however, that Ilham Aliyev will be satisfied with Unified Russia’s 64%.

[…]

[…] I don’t think Aliyev is unpopular but his popularity is the kind enjoyed by a leader who has no opposition: it’s a mile wide and an inch deep. Soviet-style media outlets in Azerbaijan exist solely to promote his trips abroad, the schools and hospitals he opens and the growing economy over which he presides. If there’s no media coverage of his shortcomings or any outlet for opposing views or any party or candidate offering an alternative, how can voters make an informed choice?

[…]

[…] Aliyev will be issue-oriented to the degree it demonstrates that, as the head of his clan, he’s handing out enough goodies to make everyone happy. There will be no
discussion about whether or not his approach is right for the country, whether his priorities are right or whether there’s any accountability for the future.

[…] Let’s make one thing clear: the political parties in Azerbaijan are a disaster. That assessment includes the ruling party, the opposition parties and the ones created on behalf of the government to placate the West. The opposition parties in Azerbaijan share many negative characteristics with political parties throughout the former Soviet Union, where freedom of assembly, press freedom and freedom of association are curtailed. Not only is it next to impossible for them to operate democratically in these environments, the parties that grow in those conditions are usually as stunted, myopic, incompetent and corrupt as the regimes they wish to replace.

Continual losses in falsified elections nourish opposition leadership and allows them to thrive on the illusion that they will achieve power if only elections were free and fair. Nothing would do more to flush out the gene pool of the opposition leadership in Azerbaijan than a reasonably free and fair election in which they achieved the 30%-35% they probably deserve. Then, and only then, would a genuine internal assessment take place and new leadership offering an alternative direction of the party emerge. Until then, the parties are stuck with the same leadership that served them so effectively during the 1990s. Watch them fight and bicker among themselves in the coming months and then each run a candidate for President, just like they did in 2003.

Well, some of those points seem very similar to the situation Armenia finds itself in as well, although it has to be said that we generally seem to be located somewhere between Azerbaijan and Georgia in the democratization and election game. Thankfully, Yerevan appears closer to Tbilisi than it does to Baku, but although the vote in Georgia is still underway, if Saakashvili wins I suppose that Armenia and Azerbaijan will follow suit and elect or re-elect the candidate representing the incumbent authorities.

There will be some improvements in the conduct of the vote, but as much as the authorities in all three republics can be blamed for the somewhat depressing situation democracy finds itself in, so too can the opposition and I’m afraid, civil society and the media on both sides of the political divide. Besides, to what extent elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan mark some kind of improvement will no doubt be related to how the conduct of the vote in Georgia today is viewed by the international community.

Still, nobody said democracy-building was going to be quick or easy, especially in the former Soviet-space. What we have to hope for, however, is that the process has at least started and doesn’t regress. In the last year’s parliamentary election in Armenia, for example, there was “progress” of sorts. The most we can expect here is that the momentum towards some kind of change continues.

Sad, unfortunately, but true and to be expected.