So Much for Azerbaijani Democracy

Last week Azerbaijan conducted “another rigged election”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/world/asia/16azeri.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=login&oref=slogin just a few short months after several government officials “said to my face”:http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/10/the-forgotten-w.php that this time things would be different.
Advisors to President Ilham Aliyev insisted that observers from the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe would fan out all over the country to monitor the election and even stop the process entirely if they detected fraudulent activity. All this was confirmed by the Israeli ambassador. Yet Aliyev was just “re-elected” with 89 percent of the vote in an election boycotted by the opposition.
Aliyev’s opponents say it was impossible for them to compete, which sounds about right. “The choice of candidates was skimpy,” Sabrina Tavernise “wrote last week”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/world/asia/16azeri.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=login&oref=slogin in the New York Times. “There were six, aside from Mr. Aliyev, but they were political nobodies, and few voters interviewed in Baku on Wednesday could identify any of them.” Imagine how free and fair our own presidential election would be if only Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain had name recognition.
It’s no wonder the president’s political opponents are almost completely invisible. Azerbaijan’s television stations are controlled by his government. Eight journalists were arrested for “libel” in the past year. Three are still in jail. Several citizens told me privately that they’re afraid to say anything critical of the government in public. It may make little difference if European election observers ensure ballots are processed and counted fairly in this kind of environment, but the OSCE and the U.S. State Department “did see some improvement”:http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-10-16-voa53.cfm compared with the last election.
“Read the rest in COMMENTARY”:http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/totten/39341.