TBILISI - Like many in North Africa and the Arab world shaken by popular uprisings in past weeks, Azerbaijan has all the ingredients for unrest – dynastic family rule, a yawning income gap and a lack of political freedoms. But unlike in Egypt or Tunisia, Azeris who have suffered from a series of economic and political upheavals over the past 25 years, including the break-up of the Soviet Union and a separatist war, are on the whole in no mood for more chaos. Recent small protests show little sign of a change. "Azerbaijan differs from the North Africa scenario because of the trajectory of the past 20 years," said Svante Cornell, research director at the Washington-based Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. "The 1990s were very bad, with war and economic collapse. Since 2005, things are improving and the population is seeing some concrete benefits in terms of wages, pensions, quality of infrastructure." President Ilham Aliyev and his father Heydar before him have taken credit for the turnaround, enshrining Heydar as saviour of the nation after the traumatic first years of independence – effectively the only time in the memory of most Azeris that an Aliyev was not at the helm. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 fanned the flames of war in mainly Muslim Azerbaijan's rebel Nagorno-Karabakh region, where Christian Armenians broke away with the support of neighbouring Armenia, seizing swathes of Azerbaijan and inflicting devastating military losses. Hundreds of thousands became refugees, the economy collapsed and a military uprising forced President Abulfaz Elchibey to flee. Heydar Aliyev, who dominated Soviet Azerbaijan first as KGB chief, then Communist party boss from the 1960s to 1980s, took control, his return to Baku from his native Nakhchivan region in June 1993 marked each year as National Salvation Day. Azerbaijan's fractious opposition is still dominated by ageing figures fatally associated with the military and economic collapse of the early 1990s. They have struggled to shake this legacy, while stifling the emergence of younger challengers. "Many people are not happy with the government, but they do not trust the opposition and most of all they are afraid of instability," said Tabib Huseynov, a researcher with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think-tank. This fear of instability and economic collapse is shared by many other ex-Soviet republics which also initially experienced hardship with the end of the Soviet Union. An economic boom driven by oil reserves in the Caspian Sea began under Heydar and has continued under Ilham, who took over from his father shortly before Heydar's death in 2003 – the proceeds helping to keep a lid on concerns over shrinking democratic freedoms. Still, many Azeris are unhappy about wealth disparity and disenfranchisement in a country where elections have been described by Western governments as rigged. Police arrested 43 people in the capital Baku on March 11 and rights groups said more than 100 others were detained the next day during a rally organised by an opposition party. More protests are promised, and other opposition groups have asked permission from Baku authorities for a rally on April 2. But political analysts agree there is no immediate threat to Aliyev's grip on the country, strategically located at the threshold of Central Asia and a transit route for US military operations in Afghanistan. "There isn't the social urban base for revolt in Azerbaijan that you saw in Egypt or Tunisia," said Tom de Waal, a senior associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "People are unhappy about corruption and a growing division between 'haves' and 'have nots', but the situation isn't explosive." High oil prices have helped protect the government by improving living standards and feeding a "rainy day" oil fund to finance social spending and infrastructure projects. Azerbaijan's 2011 budget is based on an oil price of $60 a per barrel, and the price is now twice that. "As for young activists, they are active just in social networks and have demonstrated their inability to gather a lot of people in the street," said the ICG's Huseynov. The mainly rural population of some 9 million people has limited access to the Internet, a powerful force for change in North Africa. Analysts do see some signs of concern over the upheaval in the Arab world among the Azeri political elite. Some see an anti-corruption drive launched by Aliyev after the unrest began in North Africa as a pre-emptive move to address the danger of a popular uprising. The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute's Cornell said one thing to watch was whether there is a cabinet reshuffle. Much of the cabinet is dominated by an old guard of ministers left over from Heydar's rule, and removing them could trigger deeper changes in the political system. "It's too early to say whether it (reform) is serious or just window-dressing, but it may prove the starting point for some more serious reform," he said.
