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Paper reacts to USA reportedly wanting its political system in Azerbaijan
Zerkalo, Baku
30 Apr 04
Not only we, the Azerbaijanis, but international organizations, which
have interests in the region, and the leading world countries are
concerned about the future of Azerbaijan's political system as
well. In this situation the Baku government is naturally forced to
listen to many advises and recommendations. Despite the fact that
Azerbaijan has been independent for more than 10 years, the country
has been lacking a stable political system up till now. The point is
not even about the level of democracy in Azerbaijan. There is a need
to at least determine what type of multiparty democracy we aspire to
and then move in that direction. But this is not a simple issue. The
subject of this article is, however, different. It is about the
Americans' vision of Azerbaijan's political system.
According to informed sources, Azerbaijan is the only country in the
post-Soviet area where the USA will try to conduct an experiment of
its kind and introduce the US system of the two-party democracy.
[Passage omitted: about US political system]
The Americans believe that in Azerbaijan, as they say, the natural
course of events helps to establish the two-party system of this
kind. They are guided by the proverb that "every cloud has a silver
lining". They think that the regionalism, which exists in the country
at the current stage and has almost decisive impact on political
processes, creates a good base to apply in Azerbaijan the US system of
the two-party democracy. At first sight, this is a logical, but very
primitive plan.
Thus, let us detail the US plan on building our political system. They
believe that the incumbent political elite, which mostly consists of
the people born in Naxcivan [Azerbaijani exclave] and Armenia, may
become a prototype of one of the parties of this kind. All others, who
are currently united around the people born in Karabakh and who are
the most active part of the population as a consequence, will join a
second party. It is not important in this case who will be leaders of
these parties and what names they will acquire. The main thing is to
implement this scheme. In addition, the two-party democracy proposed
by the Americans, as a whole, fits in the first-past-the-post system
of elections endorsed in the Azerbaijani Constitution.
Strengthening of the regional elite will lead to two undesirable
consequences. First, in our opinion, this will lead to the complete
criminalization of the political elite. It is not a secret that the
human rights and democracy situation in the regions is much worse and
everything is under local groups' patronage there. This, in fact,
means that local, let us name them, Mafia groups will govern
Azerbaijan's political system for many years. Their leaders have
neither special intellect nor political tolerance.
Second, without changing the country's administrative and territorial
division, the moves for strengthening the local elite may stimulate
separatist trends, especially given the existing Karabakh problem. In
addition, some external forces both in the country's north and south
stimulate trends of this kind.
Authors of this plan do not take into consideration that its
implementation in Azerbaijan will most probably lead not to the fall,
but to the growth of regional confrontation because Azerbaijan is a
small country unlike the USA. The regionalism in the USA is restricted
by local boundaries. As for Azerbaijan, the regionalism of the people
born and deported from Armenia has no local boundaries, i.e. depending
on the place of their residence, their political activity may cover
the whole country. In other words, if this plan is implemented,
i.e. if the two-party system is established at the regional level, the
existing circumstances will force the aforesaid people to carry out a
power struggle both in the regions and in the whole country. The same
scenario may be applied to another strong regional group, i.e. the
Karabakh one.
Finally, the main point is that national unity is a problem number one
in Azerbaijan today. It may be more serious than the Karabakh problem
because only through national unity one could determine precisely
national priorities both in internal and foreign policies. As for the
proposed American-type two-party system with regional emphasis, it
leads not to uniting the nation, but to its split, somewhat similar to
the period of khanates in the Azerbaijani history in 17th-18th
centuries.
That is why, the US model of the political system is not suitable for
Azerbaijan...[ellipsis as published].
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Zerkalo, Baku
30 Apr 04
Not only we, the Azerbaijanis, but international organizations, which
have interests in the region, and the leading world countries are
concerned about the future of Azerbaijan's political system as
well. In this situation the Baku government is naturally forced to
listen to many advises and recommendations. Despite the fact that
Azerbaijan has been independent for more than 10 years, the country
has been lacking a stable political system up till now. The point is
not even about the level of democracy in Azerbaijan. There is a need
to at least determine what type of multiparty democracy we aspire to
and then move in that direction. But this is not a simple issue. The
subject of this article is, however, different. It is about the
Americans' vision of Azerbaijan's political system.
According to informed sources, Azerbaijan is the only country in the
post-Soviet area where the USA will try to conduct an experiment of
its kind and introduce the US system of the two-party democracy.
[Passage omitted: about US political system]
The Americans believe that in Azerbaijan, as they say, the natural
course of events helps to establish the two-party system of this
kind. They are guided by the proverb that "every cloud has a silver
lining". They think that the regionalism, which exists in the country
at the current stage and has almost decisive impact on political
processes, creates a good base to apply in Azerbaijan the US system of
the two-party democracy. At first sight, this is a logical, but very
primitive plan.
Thus, let us detail the US plan on building our political system. They
believe that the incumbent political elite, which mostly consists of
the people born in Naxcivan [Azerbaijani exclave] and Armenia, may
become a prototype of one of the parties of this kind. All others, who
are currently united around the people born in Karabakh and who are
the most active part of the population as a consequence, will join a
second party. It is not important in this case who will be leaders of
these parties and what names they will acquire. The main thing is to
implement this scheme. In addition, the two-party democracy proposed
by the Americans, as a whole, fits in the first-past-the-post system
of elections endorsed in the Azerbaijani Constitution.
Strengthening of the regional elite will lead to two undesirable
consequences. First, in our opinion, this will lead to the complete
criminalization of the political elite. It is not a secret that the
human rights and democracy situation in the regions is much worse and
everything is under local groups' patronage there. This, in fact,
means that local, let us name them, Mafia groups will govern
Azerbaijan's political system for many years. Their leaders have
neither special intellect nor political tolerance.
Second, without changing the country's administrative and territorial
division, the moves for strengthening the local elite may stimulate
separatist trends, especially given the existing Karabakh problem. In
addition, some external forces both in the country's north and south
stimulate trends of this kind.
Authors of this plan do not take into consideration that its
implementation in Azerbaijan will most probably lead not to the fall,
but to the growth of regional confrontation because Azerbaijan is a
small country unlike the USA. The regionalism in the USA is restricted
by local boundaries. As for Azerbaijan, the regionalism of the people
born and deported from Armenia has no local boundaries, i.e. depending
on the place of their residence, their political activity may cover
the whole country. In other words, if this plan is implemented,
i.e. if the two-party system is established at the regional level, the
existing circumstances will force the aforesaid people to carry out a
power struggle both in the regions and in the whole country. The same
scenario may be applied to another strong regional group, i.e. the
Karabakh one.
Finally, the main point is that national unity is a problem number one
in Azerbaijan today. It may be more serious than the Karabakh problem
because only through national unity one could determine precisely
national priorities both in internal and foreign policies. As for the
proposed American-type two-party system with regional emphasis, it
leads not to uniting the nation, but to its split, somewhat similar to
the period of khanates in the Azerbaijani history in 17th-18th
centuries.
That is why, the US model of the political system is not suitable for
Azerbaijan...[ellipsis as published].
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress