In a telling opinion peace written for the Wall Street Journal western analysts show their cards. To merge the serious and the funny, Leonard Cohen and Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Borat, “Democracy is coming to the Caucasus… pause, Not!”
Western attention has lately been focused on governance in Azerbaijan, with
election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
giving Baku a balanced progress report on democratic development. The Oct. 15
election — which the incumbent president, Ilham Aliyev, won handily with over
90% of the vote — for the first time met most international standards and
marked a genuine improvement in election conduct. There were missing elements
too, namely the lack of a competitive campaigning climate. But Western
preoccupation with the election process misses the full picture of governance in
Azerbaijan and, more importantly, ignores the geopolitical imperatives of the
region.
