AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT SACKS LOCAL LEADERS TO DEFUSE ANGER
06:02 PM | TODAY | POLITICS
Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev has sacked the head of a district
where riots took place last month, in what some see as a way of
dissociating himself from concerns about local-level corruption.
On February 14, the president dismissed Nizami Alakbarov, head
of the Ismayilli district. The town of Ismayilli was the scene of
rioting, sparked initially by an altercation involving his nephew, but
expanding into a general outbreak of anger at perceived mismanagement
and corruption in local government. The nephew’s father is Fizuli
Alakbarov, Azerbaijan’s labour and social security minister. (See
Local Grievances Spark Protests in Azerbaijan, and also Two Opposition
Leaders Arrested in Azerbaijan for official attempts to blame the
unrest on the opposition.)
After a list of Nizami Alakbarov’s assets, including factories,
companies, buildings and land, was published in the opposition-leaning
Yeni Musavat newspaper, President Aliyev expressed outrage at the
behaviour of such local figures.
“They have become brazen about it. I warn you that if this happens
again, the sons will be prosecuted and the fathers will be sacked from
their jobs,” he told a February 12 conference dedicated, appropriately
enough, to regional development.
There has been much discussion of exactly who the president has in
his sights. All he gave away was that the individuals suspected of
corruption “know who I’m talking about”.
A day before Alakbarov went, the media reported that of Asif Mammadov,
head of Shamakhi district in central Azerbaijan, had been dismissed.
There is speculation that three more district chiefs are facing
dismissal.
Ali Hasanov, director of the political department in the presidential
office, told the APA news agency that Aliyev had put all local
government officials on a warning.
“I think all state employees and the heads of central and regional
executives will draw their own conclusions from this criticism,”
Hasanov said. “Decisions are being taken about those individuals who
have failed to discharge their responsibilities and have not lived
up to the trust the president placed in them.”
Elmira Akhundova, an independent member of parliament, said district
government chiefs were unresponsive and failed to tackle real problems.
“The district heads just go through the motions when they responding
to people’s complaints, even though they hold meetings with voters and
travel around the villages,” she said. “There are serious problems
with land being seized, shortages of land, abuses of power, cases
where villagers’ land is used by other people, and disputes both
between people and between them and the local authorities.”
“The district chiefs don’t resolve these problems, or else they aren’t
able to,” she added.
After the Ismayilli riots, Aliyev waited over two weeks before taking
action, causing some analysts to wonder whether he was struggling to
control senior officials.
“By criticising his inferiors, Aliyev wants to deflect public anger
away from himself and onto his officials,” Elkhan Shahinoglu,
a political analyst with the Atlas think-tank, said. “In this
presidential election year, he has decided to distance himself from his
corrupt entourage. That might make him more popular with the people,
but it would weaken his position in his own team.”
Other analysts doubted whether token dismissals would make any
difference to Azerbaijan’s problems, which include high unemployment
and a constant trickle of emigration to Russia.
Azer Mehdiyev, head of the Centre for Assisting Economic Reform,
believes bad local officials are merely a reflection of the way the
country is run.
“The heads of the districts, who are appointed and sacked by the
president, behave like aristocrats,” he said. “The whole system of
centralised power is built on the same principle. Local heads are not
accountable to parliament or the people, and there’s no transparency
to their behaviour. Corruption flourishes.”
Mehdiyev said a few personnel changes would do nothing to root out
corruption.
“Serious changes must start, and start this year,” he said, warning
of an impending “wave of dissatisfaction” both in Azerbaijan and
among its foreign partners.
“Without changing the system and the regime, the nature of our
government cannot change,” he said.
Isa Gambar, head of the Musavat opposition party, said the president
waited too long to sack Alakbarov – he should have done it immediately
after the riots.
“Everything Aliyev has done in the last few months has been dictated
by preparations for the election,” he said. “Note the fact that
he’s still unable to announce clearly that he plans to stand for
re-election. However much Aliyev wants to be president for a third
term, he realises that this will be viewed negatively both in this
country and abroad, so he’s holding off on announcing his candidacy.”
Kamal Ali is a freelance journalist in Azerbaijan.
The article is published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting
(iwpr.net)