by Ryan Weber
On November 7, the people of Azerbaijan went to the polls to elect a new class of legislators for the 125-seat Milli Majlis parliament. The voting was conducted in a peaceful environment, and representatives from all major opposition parties were included on the ballots. The number of women representatives in Parliament rose from 12 to 16. This is the "good news," presented by such rose-tinged media outlets as PressTV, taken without context from the OSCE/ODHIR Preliminary Report issued on November 8.
But, of course, it leaves out a few key details, like credible reports of voter fraud, administrative bias, and manipulated vote tabulations, all occurring within a campaign reduced to just 1/3 its previous length, devoid of public debate, and with minimal signs of public engagement or political contestation.
The unedited OSCE executive summary reads as follows:
Azerbaijan is no more or less democratic than it was November 6; nor can we measure its 'relative-democracy' on a scale from 1 to 10. Not all democracies are the same - some do a better job in the areas of civic equality, transparency, or functional governance. There is such a thing as a 'bad' democracy, but it is not neatly equivalent to a 'good' autocracy. The premise of a category of 'semi-democracies' is helpful - those countries, like Azerbaijan, that use the language and forms of democracy to promote non-democratic governance should be recognized and studied as such - but it must not confuse the character of the regime. While we tend to think of 'semi-authoritarians' as 'authoritarian-light,' the same is not true of the gap between 'semi-' and 'real' democracies.
If we must put things on a scale, let us define it as follows: Totalitarianism as < -1, authoritarianism as 0 and democracy as > 1. According to this rule, even a hypothetical semi-democracy of 0.9, while it may look dramatically different from a semi-authoritarian 0.3, still cannot qualify as democracy. In appropriately absolute electoral terminology, it doesn't pass the threshold. However, a 'struggling' democracy at 1.1 or a 'mature' democracy ranked 1.7 both meet the minimum requirement - though not equally 'good' or 'bad' in their protection of citizen freedoms, etc., they are both democracies.
Returning to the real-world example of Azerbaijan, the 2010 Parliamentary elections present just one more case study in an increasingly popular form of non-democratic governance perpetuated through the manipulation of electoral systems.
One of the clearest markers that a system has been co-opted comes, not from intuitive international observers or astute academics, but from the participatory enthusiasm of the affected citizens. While a corrupt, unjust, or unresponsive government might seem likely to draw the most public opposition during an election campaign, if the people who know best - those who live there - are certain that the election poses no real chance for change, there will be no incentive for them to participate. This is only compounded when threats of physical intimidation or later administrative reprisal are present, or even possible.
The OSCE report made special note of the 2010 campaign atmosphere:
One issue that may have contributed to this voter apathy was the short duration of the campaign itself. While the 2005 parliamentary campaign would be considered short by most Western standards at 60 days, the sitting Azerbaijan Parliament took extraordinary measures in June 2010 to radically reduce this even further, to just 23 days. With so little time to introduce and publicize candidates, and the need to spread resources over 125 independent single-member districts, any candidate would be hard pressed to reach a wide audience, much less motivate them. With government-controlled media, and often government employees, actively campaigning for the President's Yeni Azerbaycan Party (New Azerbaijan, YAP) or independent candidates with professed Presidential loyalty, opposition candidates didn't stand a chance. And more importantly, opposition-minded citizens had no motivation to risk supporting their candidate of choice.
If the CEC's published results hold - and there's no reason to think that they won't - YAP will have increased its formal hold on the Milli Majlis from 64 to 70 seats, and even the scant 6 seats formerly held by opposition parties will be reduced - in the case of the lead opposition parties, Musavat and the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party - to zero.
What is so striking is not the presence of fraud in the Azerbaijan election - by all accounts, it was very predictable in both its outcome and methods - but rather the almost photostat likeness to other 'semi-democracies' in the former Soviet domains, and elsewhere. The Parliamentary elections in Tajikistan in February 2010, or the Kyrgyz Presidential election in July 2009 both exhibited many of the same basic tendencies. In fact, precedents dating not only to the mid-2000s, but back into the late 1990s, show the gradual growth, mutation, and maturation of this type of governance in response to increasing pressure for democratic reform. Not years, but decades, of state and NGO-sponsored democracy promotion efforts have contributed to some breakthroughs, but they have also provided a cover for the continuation, even the strengthening, of non-democratic regimes.
To the credit of those championing democratic reform - both locally and internationally - there are few signs that they are fooled by these maneuvers. However, other international actors such as foreign governments and multi-national corporations, can latch onto these (false) markers of democracy as a cover for their involvement with an otherwise repugnant regime. This international legitimization, even when made cautiously, further emboldens the non-democratic regime. Think of petroleum revenues, military aid, or investment opportunities. In a non-democratic environment, each ultimately strengthens not the state, or private entrepreneurs, but the party in power. With increasing wealth, the ability and incentives to remain in power compound, as does the fear of eventual reprisals or prosecution for abuses if/once out of power.
This phenomenon, famously described by Michael L. Ross as the "Resource Curse," is even more disastrous when applied to pseudo-democratic states. This is not because it directly inhibits the ability of the state to pursue democratic reform, but rather because it gives license to further international support of non-democratic leaders. Nigeria, for all its mineral wealth and civic poverty, is virtually bankrupt of democratic credentials. This has not stopped international oil companies from investing in the country, but they have certainly done so at their own peril, and face regular public outcry for their actions. More than anything, it discourages the kind of enthusiastic regime support found in pseudo-democracies like Azerbaijan. The upcoming Nigerian election in April 2011 - and the incredible amount of funding and international publicity focused on it - suggests a move toward democracy, or maybe just pseudo-democracy, potentially under pressure from international supporters.
What the future holds for Nigeria is difficult to know, as the unrelated, but unexpected, April 2010 events in Kyrgyzstan demonstrated. For Azerbaijan, the new Parliament promises 5 more years of uncontested control by President Ilham Aliev, and that after the previous Parliament voted to remove Presidential term limits altogether. Musavat, APFP and other opposition parties will remain marginalized in national politics, and the likelihood of any substantial progress toward democracy, let alone real democratic governance itself, will continue to decline.
And of course, with the trappings of democracy firmly in place and 7 billion barrels of crude oil in proven reserves, the central government in Baku will continue to receive a vast influx of wealth, little of which will ever reach the majority of its populace. In this context, the inclusion of 4 more pro-Presidential women in the Milli Majlis (including the President's wife, Mehriban Aliyev) becomes a hollow victory for proponents of representative governance, and an unlikely harbinger of a future democratic Azerbaijan.
On November 7, the people of Azerbaijan went to the polls to elect a new class of legislators for the 125-seat Milli Majlis parliament. The voting was conducted in a peaceful environment, and representatives from all major opposition parties were included on the ballots. The number of women representatives in Parliament rose from 12 to 16. This is the "good news," presented by such rose-tinged media outlets as PressTV, taken without context from the OSCE/ODHIR Preliminary Report issued on November 8.
But, of course, it leaves out a few key details, like credible reports of voter fraud, administrative bias, and manipulated vote tabulations, all occurring within a campaign reduced to just 1/3 its previous length, devoid of public debate, and with minimal signs of public engagement or political contestation.
The unedited OSCE executive summary reads as follows:
"While the November 7, 2010 parliamentary elections in the Republic of Azerbaijan were characterized by a peaceful atmosphere and all opposition parties participated in the political process, the conduct of these elections overall was not sufficient to constitute meaningful progress in the democratic development of the country.Put more bluntly, there may have been an election, but it was not an exercise in democracy. And despite the efforts of the OSCE and other election observer missions to address the subject delicately, we must admit that while there can be greater and lesser degrees of progress toward democratic processes, the greater question of whether a system of governance is or is not democratic is one of type, not degrees.
Overall, the Central Election Commission (CEC) administered the technical aspects of the electoral process well. However, limitations of media freedom and the freedom of assembly and a deficient candidate registration process further weakened the opposition and made a vibrant political discourse almost impossible." (read the full OSCE 2010 report)
Azerbaijan is no more or less democratic than it was November 6; nor can we measure its 'relative-democracy' on a scale from 1 to 10. Not all democracies are the same - some do a better job in the areas of civic equality, transparency, or functional governance. There is such a thing as a 'bad' democracy, but it is not neatly equivalent to a 'good' autocracy. The premise of a category of 'semi-democracies' is helpful - those countries, like Azerbaijan, that use the language and forms of democracy to promote non-democratic governance should be recognized and studied as such - but it must not confuse the character of the regime. While we tend to think of 'semi-authoritarians' as 'authoritarian-light,' the same is not true of the gap between 'semi-' and 'real' democracies.
If we must put things on a scale, let us define it as follows: Totalitarianism as < -1, authoritarianism as 0 and democracy as > 1. According to this rule, even a hypothetical semi-democracy of 0.9, while it may look dramatically different from a semi-authoritarian 0.3, still cannot qualify as democracy. In appropriately absolute electoral terminology, it doesn't pass the threshold. However, a 'struggling' democracy at 1.1 or a 'mature' democracy ranked 1.7 both meet the minimum requirement - though not equally 'good' or 'bad' in their protection of citizen freedoms, etc., they are both democracies.
Returning to the real-world example of Azerbaijan, the 2010 Parliamentary elections present just one more case study in an increasingly popular form of non-democratic governance perpetuated through the manipulation of electoral systems.
One of the clearest markers that a system has been co-opted comes, not from intuitive international observers or astute academics, but from the participatory enthusiasm of the affected citizens. While a corrupt, unjust, or unresponsive government might seem likely to draw the most public opposition during an election campaign, if the people who know best - those who live there - are certain that the election poses no real chance for change, there will be no incentive for them to participate. This is only compounded when threats of physical intimidation or later administrative reprisal are present, or even possible.
The OSCE report made special note of the 2010 campaign atmosphere:
"The campaign was calm and low-key overall and appeared to generate little public interest. Political platforms and issues were given little prominence... No large public rallies or campaign meetings were held, either by the ruling party or the opposition. Campaigning was largely done by door-to-door canvassing by candidates and supporters. No public debates between the ruling and opposition parties were organized among candidates or party leaders. The use of campaign material was very limited and consisted mainly of small posters of candidates posted on boards allocated by the authorities for this purpose." (OSCE 2010, p.7)The paltry voter turnout of 50.14% is even more shocking given the high number of reported multi-voting, including organized busing of voters from one district to the next, ballot-box stuffing, and tabulation fraud. Of the total 4.95 million eligible voters in Azerbaijan, it is difficult to know how many actually did cast a ballot, much less to what degree those choices were reflected in the final vote count or resulting parliament.
One issue that may have contributed to this voter apathy was the short duration of the campaign itself. While the 2005 parliamentary campaign would be considered short by most Western standards at 60 days, the sitting Azerbaijan Parliament took extraordinary measures in June 2010 to radically reduce this even further, to just 23 days. With so little time to introduce and publicize candidates, and the need to spread resources over 125 independent single-member districts, any candidate would be hard pressed to reach a wide audience, much less motivate them. With government-controlled media, and often government employees, actively campaigning for the President's Yeni Azerbaycan Party (New Azerbaijan, YAP) or independent candidates with professed Presidential loyalty, opposition candidates didn't stand a chance. And more importantly, opposition-minded citizens had no motivation to risk supporting their candidate of choice.
If the CEC's published results hold - and there's no reason to think that they won't - YAP will have increased its formal hold on the Milli Majlis from 64 to 70 seats, and even the scant 6 seats formerly held by opposition parties will be reduced - in the case of the lead opposition parties, Musavat and the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party - to zero.
What is so striking is not the presence of fraud in the Azerbaijan election - by all accounts, it was very predictable in both its outcome and methods - but rather the almost photostat likeness to other 'semi-democracies' in the former Soviet domains, and elsewhere. The Parliamentary elections in Tajikistan in February 2010, or the Kyrgyz Presidential election in July 2009 both exhibited many of the same basic tendencies. In fact, precedents dating not only to the mid-2000s, but back into the late 1990s, show the gradual growth, mutation, and maturation of this type of governance in response to increasing pressure for democratic reform. Not years, but decades, of state and NGO-sponsored democracy promotion efforts have contributed to some breakthroughs, but they have also provided a cover for the continuation, even the strengthening, of non-democratic regimes.
To the credit of those championing democratic reform - both locally and internationally - there are few signs that they are fooled by these maneuvers. However, other international actors such as foreign governments and multi-national corporations, can latch onto these (false) markers of democracy as a cover for their involvement with an otherwise repugnant regime. This international legitimization, even when made cautiously, further emboldens the non-democratic regime. Think of petroleum revenues, military aid, or investment opportunities. In a non-democratic environment, each ultimately strengthens not the state, or private entrepreneurs, but the party in power. With increasing wealth, the ability and incentives to remain in power compound, as does the fear of eventual reprisals or prosecution for abuses if/once out of power.
This phenomenon, famously described by Michael L. Ross as the "Resource Curse," is even more disastrous when applied to pseudo-democratic states. This is not because it directly inhibits the ability of the state to pursue democratic reform, but rather because it gives license to further international support of non-democratic leaders. Nigeria, for all its mineral wealth and civic poverty, is virtually bankrupt of democratic credentials. This has not stopped international oil companies from investing in the country, but they have certainly done so at their own peril, and face regular public outcry for their actions. More than anything, it discourages the kind of enthusiastic regime support found in pseudo-democracies like Azerbaijan. The upcoming Nigerian election in April 2011 - and the incredible amount of funding and international publicity focused on it - suggests a move toward democracy, or maybe just pseudo-democracy, potentially under pressure from international supporters.
What the future holds for Nigeria is difficult to know, as the unrelated, but unexpected, April 2010 events in Kyrgyzstan demonstrated. For Azerbaijan, the new Parliament promises 5 more years of uncontested control by President Ilham Aliev, and that after the previous Parliament voted to remove Presidential term limits altogether. Musavat, APFP and other opposition parties will remain marginalized in national politics, and the likelihood of any substantial progress toward democracy, let alone real democratic governance itself, will continue to decline.
And of course, with the trappings of democracy firmly in place and 7 billion barrels of crude oil in proven reserves, the central government in Baku will continue to receive a vast influx of wealth, little of which will ever reach the majority of its populace. In this context, the inclusion of 4 more pro-Presidential women in the Milli Majlis (including the President's wife, Mehriban Aliyev) becomes a hollow victory for proponents of representative governance, and an unlikely harbinger of a future democratic Azerbaijan.
No comments:
Post a Comment