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BACKGROUND: THE CENTRALIZATION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL POWER IN AZERBAIJAN

All across Azerbaijan, the government has posted permanent large signs with popular sayings attributed to President Heidar Aliyev. One of the most common slogans found on these sign posts states simply “Heidar is the Nation. The Nation is Heidar.” During his ten-year reign as President, Heidar Aliev made this slogan a political reality, consolidating immense power in the presidency and its representatives at the national, provincial, and local level, in the process marginalizing other government departments and the parliament.

At the national level, the presidency reigns supreme. Parliament holds little authority and the judiciary lacks independence from the presidency.[10] The presidency directly controls two separate budgets, the national budget and the equally large State Oil Fund. Parliament has almost no power over government spending, as explained by a detailed study:

Parliament’s powers are narrowly defined in the constitution, while the president’s are left open-ended. … Neither the [parliament] nor the public exercise effective control over public finance. Parliament can neither draft nor amend the annual budget, but can only approve or reject the budget. … In its annual assessment, the Council of Europe expressed “deep concern over the undue interference of the executive in the functioning of institutions” and noted that “it is to be regretted that parliament exercises no oversight of the government’s activities, which means that the public at large is similarly excluded from this process.”

Parliamentary control is further dampened by the lack of detail provided in the draft budget. The budget is less than 20 pages long and does not provide data below the level of aggregate departments. … As a result of these limitations, debate over the budget is stymied. In 2001, the budget was approved after only twenty minutes of discussion. Neither has the Parliament ever exercised its prerogative of rejecting the budget or sending it back to the President.[11]

The judiciary is equally subservient to the presidency. One former judge told Human Rights Watch how he was called to the office of the then-Minister of Justice after he issued an order the president’s office disagreed with, and being told, “Heidar Aliev is your law, your morality, and your principles.”[12]

The absolute control at the national level is replicated throughout the country through the power wielded by the local executive authorities, “who are appointed by and solely subordinate” to the president.[13] To date, Azerbaijan has not fulfilled its commitment to the Council of Europe to reform these structures.[14] At the town and village level, the executive authorities hold vastly more power than the local municipal authority. The executive authority can order the arrest and detention of individuals or the dismissal of employees, and makes decisions on public demonstrations. In the pre-election environment, executive officials regularly used violence against opposition supporters with impunity. The municipal authorities, who were elected and often have opposition representation, are nearly invisible and powerless. Absolute loyalty to the presidency is a prerequisite for executive authority officials.

But the power of the presidency extends much further. In one of Europe’s poorest countries, with high unemployment rates and nearly half of the population living below the poverty line,[15] employment opportunities in both the government and private sector are almost completely linked to membership in the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP). Executive authorities control appointments to employment in the state sector, which accounts for nearly half of all jobs in Azerbaijan.[16] Teachers, electricity workers, and even shopkeepers risk their livelihood if they support the opposition.

The struggle to maintain complete dominance of the presidency at all levels of society is at the root of Azerbaijan’s political crisis, and also a major cause of the abuses documented in this report. The absence of power-sharing institutions in Azerbaijan, like parliament or municipal authorities with real power, makes politics an all or nothing game: a party either controls the presidency and with it all of the institutions of power, as well as most of the employment opportunities in the country; or it controls nothing, and its supporters face impoverishment. In this scenario, it is not surprising that government officials from the national to the local level participated so vigorously in the election abuses and fraud: their jobs and economic survival were on the line.

Ultimately, resolving the political crisis in Azerbaijan will require fundamental institutional reform to limit presidential power and to create democratic power-sharing centers outside the control of the presidency.