Azerbaijani political scientist: 2014 was a disaster for Azerbaijan:
in 2015 will be ”Year of depression”
16:11 27/12/2014 » SOCIETY
The political year in Azerbaijan turned out to be unsuccessful because
of the mass arrests among the civil society, journalists; the vast
majority of cases were followed by fabricated charges, which in turn
had a negative impact on the socio-political situation in the country,
Arastun Orujlu, a political scientist, director of the research center
“East-West” told in an interview with “Minval.az”.
According to the political specialist, in 2014 the socio-political
system in the country has collapsed. Official Baku has spoiled its
relations with all its important partners, except Turkey and Russia,
and the West stopped being an important strategic partner for the
country, the expert said. Moreover, during this year the official
authorities of the country voiced a lot of accusations in address to
the Europeans and Americans. And not only ordinary statements were
made, but also concrete steps were undertaken: the expulsion of
international institutions of the country, limitation of their
activity in the legal form.
“The respected democratic institutions were deported from Azerbaijan,
the verbal sparring between Brussels and Baku reaches its climax. This
does not promise anything good for the country’s future,” said the
political scientist.
Speaking of the Karabakh conflict, the political scientist noted that
nothing important had happened in the negotiation process as well,
there was no progress, there was just another attempt by Russia to use
the conflict as a lever of pressure on official Baku, which actually
succeeded.
2014 as a whole turned to be not successful for Azerbaijan from the
economic view as well, Orujlu believes. According to him, a sharp drop
in oil prices in a country the economy of which is totally dependent
on oil, has led to the fact that the economy slowed down. “And we can
see the first signs of this: there is the actual preparation of the
population in the coming year to imitate, the introduction of
additional taxes, higher prices. gasoline prices are falling around
the whole world, but this did not happen in Azerbaijan, and as we
learned recently, it will not happen at all, because it would be an
additional burden on the state budget,” said the political scientist.
As Orujlu notes, the conflict between Russia and the West has very
serious consequences for Azerbaijan. Many Azerbaijanis, who, had
settled in Russia, lost their former high incomes, some are left
without any work. And actually started a flow of unemployed
Azerbaijani migrants back to the country; the economy is not ready for
this.
At the same time, according to Orujlu in 2014 in Azerbaijan hundreds
of people who for various reasons were ready to fight in Syria, in
Iraq, but not in Karabakh were revealed.
“Of course, this has affected the atmosphere in society; the number of
suicides, brutal murders has increased. And they have a massive
character,” said the expert, adding that all of this was made possible
by domestic policy, pursued by the authorities.
“And if you consider that there is a socio-political vacuum in the
country then the surprises are totally expected in the next year. The
system is completely destroyed. Either the media, or civil society, or
the opposition, which no longer exists, does not play any role, to the
people, no one listens. It took its own way in recent months, we have
seen the use of force against the authorities at various levels. These
are the first signs of a spontaneous protest, and it portends us about
chaotic processes, and if such process begins, – and it will probably
begin – then you can imagine how the vacuum will look: either all
spontaneously chaotic processes will be taken under control by the
authorities, or the extremists and radicals will take care of it,”
said the expert.
Azerbaijani authorities have made a historical mistake by wrong
treatment with the civil society, the media, the opposition and those
important elements of social and political systems that are like a
balancing factor, stressed Orujlu. According to the political
scientist, the detonator is already set up by the authorities, and the
explosion will be heard which will sweep everything away, the date of
the explosion is not known though: “In this sense, 2015 is a year of
“economic depression.”
The coming year be a difficult one, given the money to be spent on the
European games and the anticipated parliamentary elections. “Next year
will be quite risky for the authorities. And we will see it in the
first months of the year,”he concluded.
http://www.panorama.am/en/politics/2014/12/27/az-polit-orujlu/