Where they bus protestors out of town

February 9: Azerbaijan Parliamentary Elections
Yeni Azerbaijan party: 69
Independents: 42
Other party members: 9
Opposition: 1

If anyone one ever decides to study how to dismantle a democracy, Azerbaijan would be a good place to start.

The country is not well known outside of its immediate geography, except among fans of Eurovision, Formula One, followers of international journalism investigations such as the Panama Papers, which exposed ruling family members’ ownership of several offshore companies.

Azerbaijan was the first independent Muslim democracy. It declared independence in 1918. That year, it became the first Muslim nation to grant women’s suffrage. 

Today, little remains of Azerbaijan’s 1918 legacy of modernization and democratization. In 1920, the country was taken over by the Bolsheviks. In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union made it an independent state once more. The current president, Ilham Aliyev, took over  from his father in 2003. His father, the former KGB general Heydar Aliyev, spent the previous decade governing the country with a firm grip on power. He brought his close family members into key government positions. The younger Aliyev has not shown any desire to break from his father’s mold. 

The February parliamentary election was originally scheduled to take place in November 2020. However, amid applauded but inconsequential reforms—mostly involving cabinet reshuffling of veteran aparatchicks with young, English-speaking cadres—the previous parliament’s members asked the president to dissolve the national assembly due to their lack of capacity. From afar, it might have seemed like the country was modernizing. But Aliyev had no intention of loosening his grip. 

The president accepted their request. With the blessing of Azerbaijan’s highest court, the parliament was dismissed in December and a new day for the election was set. This left very little time for opposition groups to campaign and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to recruit and deploy its long-term observation mission which usually arrives two months ahead of the scheduled election. 

The reshuffling has changed little. Of the 99 outgoing members who voted in favor of the motion to dismiss parliament, 80 sought re-election. There are some new, younger parliamentarians. But 69 members of the ruling party are now back in the parliament. Only one representative of an opposition party, Real Alternative (REAL) Erkin Gadirli, won enough votes to earn a seat. 

It’s hard to describe what it is like to vote in a country where everyone knows the system is rigged. People do not see elections as tools for change. Turnout is low. The government claims that 47 percent of registered voters showed up this time—though many believe the number is far lower. Of course, people do vote. Some  are paid to do so, and others, especially those who work for the government, vote for the sake of not losing their jobs. Some do show up to support the alternative candidates. But very few people believe that an election can bring anything new. 

Independent and opposition candidates reported and documented mass violence and fraud after the election. These reports were echoed in a report by the OSCE, which noted cases of “ballot-box stuffing and group voting.” 

Candidates from independent parties said that they would publicly campaign against the election results until the Central Election Commission investigated the violations. But very few people believe that the Election Commission is independent or would do anything that goes against Aliyev’s government.

On February 11, defeated parliamentary candidates and activists gathered outside the Central Election Commission building in Baku. The police shoved members of the crowd into buses and drove them to undisclosed locations about an hour away from the capital. It was only possible to learn the whereabouts of protestors after they were dropped off. Many had their phones and broadcast their detention live on social media. Friends with cars traveled to pick them up and bring them back. One freelance reporter Aynur Elgunesh was reportedly beaten by the police. One parliamentary candidate, Rabiyya Mammadova, had her arm broken by the police. Many others shared pictures of injuries sustained as a result of police violence on Facebook. 

Driving protesters away in buses and dropping them off in locations outside the city is not new in Azerbaijan. It’s understood as a way for the police to punish protestors while remaining mostly immune to charges of violence. 

Similar steps were taken just days later. This time, however, the police did not wait for the protests to begin. Instead, they rounded up members of the opposition movement and parties from their homes and offices and then bussed them away. Protestors who were taken on this “road trip” were the lucky ones—the other option was detention.

Activists who have pursued their cases against the government in domestic courts are now aiming to bring those cases to  the European Court of Human Rights. Among those is Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, a 37-year old Harvard graduate who was a candidate for parliament in 2010. He had hoped that his case would lead to the cancelation of results in his precinct. But the Supreme court of Azerbaijan ruled against Hajiyev’s appeal. He said that he did not expect that he would win his case.

I understand Hajiyev’s lack of trust. 

I have lived outside of Azerbaijan for years, and have been unable to return since 2014 because of my work as a journalist. 

I was back to observe the election in 2013 holding a media badge in my hands. I argued with the members of the local committee that I was allowed to film the elections. 

Reading about the most recent elections, I realized how lucky I was back then. I was able to capture the election on film. This is not what happened to Jale Byaramova, an independent observer who brought a camera to document the most recent elections in Baku. As she stood in the polling station, a woman approached and told her not to film. Before Byaramova was able to explain her rights, the woman’s hands were around her throat, banging Byaramova’s head against the floor. So far as I can tell, no one from the electoral commission intervened. Byaramova was able to escape. Footage of the incident went viral. But neither the perpetrator nor the members of the local election committee were held accountable.