PUBLIC OPINION STABLE

With the official launch of the election marathon looming, the Central Electoral Commission will soon begin the registration of candidates. As of today, three contenders have been put forward for the post of Azerbaijani president. These are President Ilham Aliyev, chairman of the Musavat Party Isa Qambar and screenwriter Rustam Ibrahimbayov, reports the Ray monitoring centre that held on 22-28 July a national survey of public opinion.

It will transpire in September when the Central Electoral Commission will complete the registration of candidates if the list is to change and someone else will vie in the election. For the time being, Ray polled the viewers on their attitude and preferences with regard to the already known contenders for presidency. To receive their answers the interviewers of the centre polled 1,500 respondents across the country, aged 18 and above. The error margin is 3%, the report said. 

We will start from stating that 11,7% of respondents confidently said that they "know about the existence of the opposition's National Council", while 17,2% said they "know, something about this organization" (this adds up to almost 30% of respondents, among whom Baku residents accounted for three-fourths). Meanwhile, 74,2% of those surveyed were confused and could not answer the control filtering question: to name correctly at least three members of the so-called "National Council" of the opposition.

Some 86,1% of voters are unaware that Rustam Ibrahimbayov was nominated as the "joint opposition candidate". In addition, 91,1% did not know that according to the opposition's plan, in the event of winning the election the "joint candidate" will occupy the presidential seat for no more than two years. (In the meantime the ground will be prepared for re-electing the parliament, forming a transitional government and conducting an extraordinary presidential election.) In other words, the vast majority of the population has no notion of this far-reaching scheme with the creation of the "National Council" and nomination of Ibrahimbayov as "joint candidate".

When questioned about who they would suggest to run in the election if the opposition's candidate was up to them, 1% named Ibrahimbayov (in Baku this figure stood at 1,5%, while it was 0,8% for the rest of the country). Incidentally, almost three times as many people pointed out Isa Qambar for this role and 1,6% opted for Ali Karimli.

When asked about which contender they will vote in the presidential election 81,2% named Ilham Aliyev, less than 2% - Isa Qambar and around 1% - Rustam Ibrahimbayov.

In response to the request of R+, Milli Maclis MP and political analyst Rasim Musabayov commented on the sociological survey's results.

- I am not surprised by the figures quoted above. Even prior to my election to parliament for seven years (2003-2010) I led the project of sociological monitoring in Azerbaijan conducted by the sociological service Puls-R. American specialists helped us build the methodology of the sociological survey, while the Germany-based Fredrich Ebert Stftung extended financial support.

Throughout the entire period of our survey the level of confidence of respondents with regard to President Ilham Aliyev remained in approximately the same interval. Other questions yielded similar results. Therefore, when four out of five polled by Ray said that they will vote for Ilham Aliyev in the presidential election this autumn this was a reflection of long-term stable public sentiments, rather than of short-term ones. 

The first reason for this is that the considerable portion of the Azerbaijani population has traditionally supported the incumbent authorities. Second, in recent years Azerbaijan has experienced rapid economic growth with concrete positive changes in the population's living standards, a fact that is corroborated not only by the national statistical data, but also by the authoritative international ranking and financial institutions. Naturally, this is also seen as an asset for the incumbent national president.

Regarding the extremely low indicators of the opposition's candidates, I believe that despite the notions that they spread around about universal and strong resentment of the population with the situation in Azerbaijan, this is wide of the mark. The protest sentiments are shared by the minority, not the majority of citizens. The population views the opposition leaders who oppose Ilham Aliyev as losers, that is, permanent failures. Hence, the extremely low level of support for them.

As for Rustam Ibrahimbayov, we can say that he may be an acceptable candidate as a compromise for the opposition organizations that joined in the "National Council", but as a politician he is absolutely unknown. He lacks a political biography. For people he is a popular and prominent playwright and filmmaker. All of his life he consciously shied away from politics and only now, aged 74, he decided to step into the struggle for the highest post in the state.

History knows many examples of people aged above 70 engaging in big-time politics (Churchill, Adenauer, Reagan, Heydar Aliyev), but all of them as a rule spent many decades in this profession. I am not aware of a single example to date of a success in big-time politics by a person who began this career in an old age. Therefore, the low level of recognition of Ibrahimbayov as the joint opposition candidate and the even lower level of support are quite natural. I am not even convinced that Rustam Ibrahimbayov is supported by all opposition-minded voters. He is a Russian speaker who lived most of his life in Moscow, USA and France. He is mentally alien for the majority of the opposition electorate, who formally nominated him. The ideas that Ibrahimbayov from time to time spouts concerning Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, the Russian vector in foreign policy and even the rhetoric he uses for this, is hardly resonating with the sentiments of rank-and-file opposition members from the People's Front of Azerbaijan Party, Musavat and especially Boz Qurd.

To be sure, the election campaign is still ahead. If Rustam Ibrahimbayov solves his problems with Russian citizenship and is nominated in accordance with the existing legislation then he may be officially registered as a presidential candidate. Then he will be able to have meetings with voters, place promotional posters and address the electorate via TV and radio. This will somewhat boost his rating, but neither he, nor any other candidate is remotely likely to cover in the short time that remains until early October the colossal gap to reach the incumbent president, Ilham Aliyev.