Tilting at Windmills

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Vafa Nagi is running for a seat in parliament as an independent in Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections Sept. 1.

“I have no chance to win,” she told Radio Free Europe.

Around the world, opposition candidates like Nagi, a former journalist, often boycott elections as a show of disapproval of an election process they say is rigged in favor of the incumbents –Bangladesh’s election in January, for example.

But Nagi says that taking part in a race that is certain to be swept by the dominant New Azerbaijan Party, headed by President Ilham Aliyev, along with other loyal parties because of the iron control they collectively have on the country, still makes sense.

“You can see that people need someone to tell their problems to, people need someone to care about them,” she said of voters. And regarding her home district of Neftchala, she said, “People have been completely forgotten by officials.”

Still, many of her fellow opposition members are refusing to stand in the election. The question has divided the opposition for years, especially so during the presidential race in February, which Aliyev easily won, says Eurasianet.

So far, the largest opposition party, the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (AXCP), is boycotting the parliamentary race, as it did in February, to take away any legitimacy the race might have.

“We know that we won’t come to power through a boycott,” the party’s leader, Ali Karimli, told Meydan TV, an independent Azeri outlet. “But the question for us now is not how we will come to power, but whether we take part in the government’s charade of a fraudulent election?”

“The fact that the principled opposition … didn’t fit into Aliyev’s plan (for the election) is driving the arrogant regime crazy,” he added.

That was underscored by prosecutors starting an investigation into him in early August for slander and insult, according to JAMnews. About a dozen of his fellow party members are already in jail on “politically motivated” charges.

Meanwhile, Musavat, another large opposition party, has decided to take part in this one.

“I don’t think our participation will lead to democratic elections,” Musavat’s leader, Isa Qambar, told Voice of America. “But we don’t know any other way to change the system.”

Azerbaijan, a former Soviet satellite, has been one of the most repressive countries in the region since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to Freedom House. And Aliyev, who is running for his fifth term and has been in office since 2003 – shortly before his father, a former high-ranking KGB agent and then president of the country, died – has made the country even more repressive.

For example, last year, parliament passed a law that restricts political parties, duly dampening the activities and efficacy of opposition parties. Journalists and civil rights activists, meanwhile, are routinely arrested or harassed, wrote Human Rights Watch.

Analysts say the government occasionally allows a few opposition candidates to win, to keep the public engaged in the election. But Nagi is unlikely to be one of those acceptable candidates.

The powers-that-be have driven her out of office before.

Nagi was elected in 2019 to a municipal council in the Neftchala district, but made powerful enemies after she questioned the council about the illegal sale of lands and other governance and transparency issues, wrote the US Embassy in Azerbaijan.

The Embassy reported that “local officials launched a gender-based harassment and intimidation campaign against Vafa Nagi … the local municipal council chair reportedly ordered authorities to hang photographs of Nagi dressed in her swimsuit with the caption ‘Lady Gaga’ throughout the conservative village to embarrass and shame her and her family members.”

Soon after, she was ousted from the council.

Still, Nagi’s a glass-full type of candidate. She told RFE/RL that the situation can always get worse: “We are trying so our country doesn’t turn into Turkmenistan.”