Your trusted source

The political year in Azerbaijan turned out to be unsuccessful because of the mass arrests among the civil society, journalists; the vast majority of cases were followed by fabricated charges, which in turn had a negative impact on the socio-political situation in the country, Arastun Orujlu, a political scientist, director of the research center "East-West" told in an interview with "Minval.az".

According to the political specialist, in 2014 the socio-political system in the country has collapsed. Official Baku has spoiled its relations with all its important partners, except Turkey and Russia, and the West stopped being an important strategic partner for the country, the expert said. Moreover, during this year the official authorities of the country voiced a lot of accusations in address to the Europeans and Americans. And not only ordinary statements were made, but also concrete steps were undertaken: the expulsion of international institutions of the country, limitation of their activity in the legal form.

"The respected democratic institutions were deported from Azerbaijan, the verbal sparring between Brussels and Baku reaches its climax. This does not promise anything good for the country's future," said the political scientist.

Speaking of the Karabakh conflict, the political scientist noted that nothing important had happened in the negotiation process as well, there was no progress, there was just another attempt by Russia to use the conflict as a lever of pressure on official Baku, which actually succeeded.

2014 as a whole turned to be not successful for Azerbaijan from the economic view as well, Orujlu believes. According to him, a sharp drop in oil prices in a country the economy of which is totally dependent on oil, has led to the fact that the economy slowed down. "And we can see the first signs of this: there is the actual preparation of the population in the coming year to imitate, the introduction of additional taxes, higher prices. gasoline prices are falling around the whole world, but this did not happen in Azerbaijan, and as we learned recently, it will not happen at all, because it would be an additional burden on the state budget," said the political scientist.

As Orujlu notes, the conflict between Russia and the West has very serious consequences for Azerbaijan. Many Azerbaijanis, who, had settled in Russia, lost their former high incomes, some are left without any work. And actually started a flow of unemployed Azerbaijani migrants back to the country; the economy is not ready for this.

At the same time, according to Orujlu in 2014 in Azerbaijan hundreds of people who for various reasons were ready to fight in Syria, in Iraq, but not in Karabakh were revealed.

"Of course, this has affected the atmosphere in society; the number of suicides, brutal murders has increased. And they have a massive character," said the expert, adding that all of this was made possible by domestic policy, pursued by the authorities.
"And if you consider that there is a socio-political vacuum in the country then the surprises are totally expected in the next year. The system is completely destroyed. Either the media, or civil society, or the opposition, which no longer exists, does not play any role, to the people, no one listens. It took its own way in recent months, we have seen the use of force against the authorities at various levels. These are the first signs of a spontaneous protest, and it portends us about chaotic processes, and if such process begins, - and it will probably begin - then you can imagine how the vacuum will look: either all spontaneously chaotic processes will be taken under control by the authorities, or the extremists and radicals will take care of it," said the expert.

Azerbaijani authorities have made a historical mistake by wrong treatment with the civil society, the media, the opposition and those important elements of social and political systems that are like a balancing factor, stressed Orujlu. According to the political scientist, the detonator is already set up by the authorities, and the explosion will be heard which will sweep everything away, the date of the explosion is not known though: "In this sense, 2015 is a year of "economic depression."

The coming year be a difficult one, given the money to be spent on the European games and the anticipated parliamentary elections. "Next year will be quite risky for the authorities. And we will see it in the first months of the year,"he concluded.