SEO Header Title

March 2, 2012

By Gorkhmaz Asgarov

The civil unrest in Guba, its quick escalation into violence, created a new political reality in Azerbaijan. For the first time since 1993, people demanded and successfully kicked out of the office a local governor appointed by the Azerbaijani president. Now the president of Azerbaijan has to choose between two equally unpleasant options. The president can either stand by the people of Guba and agree that Guba’s local governor was an incompetent and insensitive bureaucrat, in which case a lot of other regions with equally incompetent and insensitive governors might go Guba on the Azerbaijani president, or the president Aliyev can double down on supporting the governor and use the brute force of the police, the security forces to break down the popular resentment in Guba. In the latter case Ilham Aliyev risks turning into an Azerbaijani version of Qaddafi or Bashar Al-Assad.

What Happened?

People in Guba (or Quba, as written in Azeri alphabet), a northern province in Azerbaijan, are not known for their violent temper. But they had enough with their local governor appointed by the Azeri president. Besides looting the region as any other local governor does in his fiefdom, Rauf Habibov, the governor of Guba, chose to insult the local residents of Guba… in public… for no reason, good or bad, thus adding an insult to injury. In one of his regular meetings with the staff of the Executive Authorities of Guba, governor Rauf Habibov repeatedly stated that the people of Guba consisted of a bunch or traitors ready to sell their land and houses for 30-40 dollars. Someone recorded that speech, placed it on the Youtube, and the people of Guba found out what their governor thought of them.

On March 1, the peaceful people of Guba, about ten thousand of them, attacked the executive authorities forcing the governor to flee; burned three buildings owned personally by Rauf Habibov; clashed with the police and the internal troops; stood their ground against the punitive troops dispatched to Guba under the orders from the central government in Baku. Click here to read the full report on Guba events

The pro-government member of the parliament from Guba Vahid Ahmadov promised that the hated governor would be fired and the people dispersed only after the media circulated the unofficial news that the president Ilham Aliyev dismissed Rauf Habibov from his position. The police released 22 protesters arrested during the clashes with the police forces.

That very day, after the people dispersed, the government declared curfew in Guba and deployed additional police troops in the region.

What Next?

Although the local news media unofficially reported that the president dismissed the governor Habibov, there is no official announcement through the government controlled media confirming Habibov’s dismissal. It looks like the president Ilham Aliyev is still considering his options on this issue. Firing Habibov alone, and doing so immediately after the violent protests in Guba, signals weakness, something a dictator can never afford to do. After all, nearly none the governors in about 80 other regions of Azerbaijan is any better than the fallen governor of Guba. What if the other regions of Azerbaijan are encouraged by the Guba protests? What if the people in those regions also rise up to burn the hated villas and palaces of the corrupt local representatives of the Aliyev regime in their hometowns?

Two Equally Unpleasant Choices

If the president Aliyev chooses to fire Rauf Habibov, he has to do that in a way which allows the Azerbaijani government to save its face. Holding a large policy forum with the representatives of local executive authorities, establishing a government commission to investigate into the corruption among the representatives of the executive authorities in the regions, and firing a whole team of corrupt bureaucrats, Habibov being one of them, is one way in which the Aliyev government could save its face. Of course, the president Aliyev’s holding a torch of anti-corruption struggle will not look that genuine to the Azeri public. After all, the Washington Post reported about 9 expensive villas worth $75 million registered under Ilham Aliyev’s two daughters and his underage son not so long ago. But launching an “anti-corruption program” still looks much better than just firing Rauf Habibov.

The second alternative is to double down. The Azerbaijani government controlled TV regarded the Guba events as “a riot” and the Ministry of Internal Affairs also used the same definition. People were convinced to leave the streets which are now filled with the police forces loyal to the Azerbaijani president. Hence, the avenue for prosecuting the protesters in Guba is open. But… The people of Guba have already surprised the president Aliyev once, by bringing up a successful revolt out of nowhere within a matter of hours. Would the president Aliyev risk to test further the fighting spirit of the people in Guba? Qaddafi and Bashar Al-Assad chose to push their limits in Libya and Syria respectively and they lost.

Ilham Aliyev, like any dictator, will take no advice from anybody, and will have a lonely discussion with his own self on what route to pursue. His gut instincts, like the gut instincts of any dictator, scream in favor of going Qaddafi on the protesters. However, the question is whether he can afford that. Qaddafi couldn’t.