Over the past 20 years, huge investments have been made in the Azerbaijani army, mainly in the form of arms purchases, and this is the only merit of Ilham Aliyev, as recent events have shown that these investments have justified themselves. The statement came from Arif Yunusov, Azerbaijani political scientist and head of the Migration Department at the Institute for Peace and Democracy during the “Caucasus in the 21st Century” annual conference organized by the Caucasus Institute on Friday.
At the same time, he notes that Azerbaijan did not win the war, but it won the battle, as Armenia did in the previous period, as Karabakh is not under Azerbaijani rule. By and large, the political scientist considers the Aliyev government a failure, because the Artsakh issue has not been resolved and Azerbaijan is not a developed state, and Ilham Aliyev can say that he is the state. In his analysis of the last 20 years, Arif Yunusov noted that the Azerbaijani perspective of the American dream is oil, and oil brought Heydar Aliyev to power, as he promised to ensure a good life in Azerbaijan at the expense of oil, making Azerbaijan the second Kuwait.
It was the prospect of a good life that made people turn a blind eye to both authoritarianism and corruption, even the transfer of power to his son, Ilham Aliyev. According to the political scientist, all this was “fed” by Western, in particular, American experts, describing Ilham Aliyev as a young reformer, in contrast to KGB General Heydar Aliyev.
The speaker said that in the last 20 years, according to official data, it has earned $157 billion from the sale of energy resources. The expert draws attention to the fact that in the beginning, the statistics in Azerbaijan were not presented correctly, some of them were not presented, and the income went into the pocket of the ruling family. According to some estimates, Azerbaijan actually earns $190-240 billion a year from the sale of energy resources. But even the official data is impressive and that amount was enough for the development of Azerbaijan, which has a population of 10 million, according to the speaker, and even more. But what was this money spent on, how did the quality of life of ordinary Azerbaijanis change, and what political changes took place? These are the questions.
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Arif Yunusov states that the political system in Azerbaijan was authoritarian, and if his father formally tolerated the opposition, Ilham Aliyev completely crushed both the opposition political forces and civil society, and now everything is under the control of the repressive government and in an atmosphere of fear.
According to the speaker, Ilham Aliyev is exercising absolute power, and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation has turned into a mega-ministry, which finances non-governmental organizations and in turn “pulls out” Heydar Aliyev’s entourage, the old guard, which had a lot of leverage, and the “Nakhichevan Clan,” which was more influential, and Ilham gained absolute power.
According to Arif Yusov, the Pashayevs made another attempt in 2017 to limit Aliyev’s rule, but to no avail. In 2019, the issue was resolved in favor of Ilham Aliyev. In other words, according to him, in the last 20 years Ilham Aliyev “cleared” the field, gaining absolute power without formalities. But if the authoritarian government in Singapore made socio-economic changes that led to development, in Azerbaijan it did not actually happen, although according to all statistics it is growing. According to the speaker, the rate of such development is very low for a country with so much oil and gas.
Nelly Grigoryan
