Rejoice but do not forget

Two good news items today: the release of Nadiya Savchenko and of the investigative Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismajilova. Of the two, oddly enough, straightforward rejoicing is in order more with the latter.

Khadija Ismayilova was released on probation by the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan on appeal after a world-wide campaign. (An addition source of satisfaction is that this was not achieved by the egregious Amal Clooney who was taking the case to the ECHR.)

Ismayilova, who had delved into the wealth of the country’s first family, was arrested in December 2014 and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail in September last year.

The supreme court ruled on Wednesday that her sentence would be changed to a three-and-a-half-year suspended term. A group of wellwishers gathered outside the court with balloons to celebrate the verdict, which has come two days before Ismayilova’s 40th birthday. She is expected to leave detention later in the day.

Her trial, on charges of tax evasion and embezzlement, was widely seen as politically motivated, and revenge for her award-winning reporting. In her work for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), she carried out a number of investigations that linked president Ilham Aliyev and his family to alleged corruption scandals.

At the same time as Ismayilova’s arrest, Azerbaijan’s authorities also raided RFE/RL’s Baku bureau and sealed it shut. The oil-rich country is run by Aliyev, who took over when his father died in 2003, and little dissent is tolerated. A number of other rights activists, journalists and lawyers have been imprisoned in the country on charges widely decried as politicised, though a group of them were released earlier this year.

Either the Supreme Court in Azerbaijan is more independent than any of us had believed or, much more likely, the Aliyev family is relatively sensitive to Western reactions and attitudes.

One cannot say the same about Vlad and his Chekists who are about as sensitive as a rhinoceros is to tickling (don't try it at home).

Nadiya Savchenko, Russia's most famous hostage, as RFE/RL says, was also released today, having been pardoned by President Putin after fairly long imprisonment, stretches of hunger strike, a show trial overwhelming in its ludicrousness and a twenty-two year sentence. She is not simply being released, though, but exchanged for two Russians, Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, who had been described during their trial in Ukraine as being

elite members of Russian military intelligence - but Russia insisted they were not on active duty when they were captured in eastern Ukraine.

They were sentenced to 14 years in jail last month after being found guilty of waging an "aggressive war" against Ukraine, committing a terrorist act and using weapons to provoke an armed conflict.

They, too, have been pardoned by President Poroshenko.

So Savchenko's release is a little more complicated than Ismayilova's conditional one. As Brian Whitmore says on The Morning Vertical

And as for Russia, Savchenko was just the most high-profile example of Moscow's recent habit of hostage-taking: of snatching foreign citizens from their homelands and forcing them to endure ridiculous show trials in Russia. That list runs from Estonian law-enforcement officer Eston Kohver, who has been released, to Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who has not. For those released, the pattern is similar: the abduction, the transparently absurd charges and cover story, the show trial, and finally the exchange for Russians who have committed actual crimes.

Expect more of the same in the near future.

Not just French Senators

As this blog pointed out, certain election monitors, namely a few French Senators were falling over themselves to announce to the world that the recent election in Azerbaijan was free, fair and in keeping with the best democratic traditions despite a few minor problems like results being published before anything even happened.

It seems that the Senators in question are not alone. The same opinion was voiced by the representatives of two Toy Parliamentary Institutions, the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) of which Azerbaijan is a member and which we, according to some, must not leave under any circumstances.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) condemned the election, citing the lack of a level playing field, limitations on fundamental freedoms, intimidation of voters and candidates, a restrictive media environment and “significant problems ... throughout all stages of the election day processes.”

At the same time, the European Parliament (EP) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace) praised the election and said they observed a "free, fair and transparent" process around election day.

What could be the reason for this, asks Holly Ruthrauff of EUObserver.

Like other autocrats in the region and beyond, Azerbaijan's President, Ilham Aliyev, seeks a veneer of international legitimacy and calls in pseudo election observers who assess the election positively, regardless of its integrity.

Such observers may be motivated by various interests, political or economic, or even, reportedly, by gifts of Azerbaijan’s famous caviar.

This phenomenon has unfortunately become a typical part of elections in the region, as well as globally. The trend of internationals overlooking a blatantly undemocratic election to cast legitimacy on the incumbent winner is only accentuated in an oil-rich state like Azerbaijan.

But surely, she pleads, the EP and PACE are not fake election observers but real organizations devoted to the idea of democracy, freedom and transparency.

They regularly send delegations of elected parliamentarians to observe elections and have committed themselves to do so in a credible manner.

Both are signatories of the UN Declaration of Principles for International Election Observers, a document signed by 45 international observer groups expressly to avoid such situations.

The declaration requires observer groups to conduct comprehensive observation, taking into account the entire election process and placing election day into this context.

Indeed, it was the long-term findings of the ODIHR that the EP and Pace disavowed by issuing a separate statement, contrary to established practice.

So what caused this behaviour? Alas, we get no explanations merely hand-wringing. Dare I suggest that the words oil and caviare might be part of that explanation, at least as a starting point?

So much for those election monitors

To nobody's particular surprised President Aliyev of Azerbaijan has won a spectacular victory and will be entering his third term.

The Central Election Commission (CEC) said that with 92 percent of the vote counted, the incumbent, Ilham Aliyev, won by 85 percent, while the top opposition candidate, Jamil Hasanli, got 5 percent.

"Our model of national and religious tolerance is an example for all other nations … We will continue democratic reforms and the process of building a modern state," Aliyev told national TV.

In this he has the agreement of some of the international observers in Baku.

French senators have congratulated Azerbaijan's President on a sweeping election victory, but they could have done it one day before the vote.

The French politicians, Nathalie Goulet, Mohamed Soilihi and Jean-Claude Peroni - three of dozens of international monitors in the country - were quoted by Azerbaijan state press on Thursday (10 October) as saying Wednesday's poll was free and fair.

"I did not see any difference in the election processes of our countries," France's Soilihi noted.

A slight problem has emerged, which casts doubt on that statement unless there are aspects to the French electoral system we do not know.

The CEC contracted a firm called Happy Baku to create a phone app to publish the outcome.

But when the app became available for download one day ahead of the vote, it already contained a set of results: Aliyev 73 percent and Hasanli 7 percent.

Activists based in Germany, which operate the opposition cable channel Meydan TV, published screen-grabs of the data.

The news quickly acquired the tag "appgate" and reached EU officials in Brussels. It also made headlines on the British state broadcaster, the BBC, on Swedish TV and in the US daily, the Washington Post.

The app equally quickly went offline. The Happy Baku chief also deleted his Facebook page, Twitter account and LinkedIn page.

We have to wait and see how EU officials will react to events in Azerbaijan, given that President Aliyev "is about to decide what percentage of a €40 billion gas pipeline to award to European firms". To be fair, the EU itself does not have electoral mishaps of this kind - it prefers not to elect its political leaders.

Nabucco is no more

Pending Azerbaijan's official announcement on Friday, we can say that the Nabucco pipeline, intended to lessen certain EU member states' reliance on Russian gas, is no more.

EUObserver reports that Austrian firm OMV, part of the Nabucco consortium, said on Wednesday (26 June) that Azerbaijan, the gas supplier, has opted for the rival "Tap" pipeline instead.

"[Azerbaijan's] Shah Deniz II consortium informed OMV, as a shareholder of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International, about the decision on their preferred gas transportation route to Europe. The Nabucco West project was not selected by the consortium," it noted on its website.

While Tap is also intended to bring "10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year from the Caspian region to EU countries in the next five or so years to Europe" by-passing Russia, it is less useful.

Tap is to run from the Turkish border via Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, to Italy. Nabucco West was to have run from Turkey via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, to Austria.

Greece depends on Russian gas for 58 percent of consumption, while Italy's dependence is just 22 percent.

Neither country was badly hit in the 2008/2009 Russia-Ukraine gas crisis.

But in Bulgaria, which depends on Russia 100 percent, street lights went out in Sofia and electricity supplies to hospitals were put at risk. Dependency is also high in Hungary (56%) and Austria (52%).

If these plans go ahead certain countries will remain vulnerable to Russian pressure and, not to put too fine a point on it, blackmail. On the other hand, of course, Russia badly needs to sell its gas as its income relies almost entirely on raw produce like gas and oil.

Then again, President Ilhan Aliyev of Azerbaijan is no slouch when it comes to using the country's gas reserves to extract various concessions from the EU (though he is less likely to start putting pressures on individual member states) and is said to be delaying signing the Tap agreement till the autumn, that is the next presidential elections.