Broadcast Blues in Baku

More observations about the referendum in Azerbaijan last week, in which more than 90 per cent of voters loyally called on their glorious leader to continue ruling them for as long as he wants. From my regular column in The Moscow Times:

A swarm of election officials descended upon us as soon as we arrived at the polling station in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku. These fidgety young men wore shiny suits and long, pointy shoes of the sort considered chic by junior apparatchiks in the former Soviet Union, and were closely trailed by a cloud of pungent aftershave.

Our presence - or more specifically, the presence of our camera - was obviously making them extremely uneasy. They hovered nervously around us as we tried to interview people who were casting their votes in last week’s referendum on whether to abolish Azerbaijan’s two-term presidential limit and consolidate the power of the country’s strongman leader, Ilham Aliyev.

Their conspicuous eavesdropping made it unlikely that anyone would speak to us honestly in a country where people already seem to be afraid of talking to television reporters. But actually, they needn’t have worried. Everyone we spoke to repeated the government line as if they had stayed up the night beforehand memorising it. Ilham Aliyev is our hope for the future, they declared; all we must do is trust in him and he’ll do the right thing for all of us - the sort of opinions that would cause any petty authoritarian to glow with satisfaction. I asked an Azeri colleague if it made her feel depressed to hear her compatriots expressing this kind of cringing obeisance. She simply sighed, nodded, and looked away despondently.

These are not good times for journalists in Azerbaijan. The referendum also approved new restrictions on the media, including an ominous-sounding ban on “showing disrespect” to “state symbols”. This is already a country where reporters have been jailed, Azeri-language broadcasts by companies like the BBC and Radio Liberty have been prohibited, and dissenting voices have been marginalised.

The headlines on many of Azerbaijan’s television news shows tell their own story. Day after day, they begin with a suitably respectful report on a presidential meeting, visit or statement - this, for instance, is a summary from Lider TV one evening during the week before the referendum:

Story 1: President Ilham Aliyev and his wife Mehriban Aliyeva have visited the national museum of Azerbaijani literature to familiarise themselves with repair works there.

Story 2: President Ilham Aliyev has visited the cultural centre of the National Security Ministry to familiarise himself with repair works there.

Story 3: President Ilham Aliyev has attended the opening ceremony of the late Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev’s statue.

The referendum has ensured that people here in Azerbaijan can expect more of the same, for a long time to come.