The Next 5 Years

Aliyev’s pre-election platform was not a typical platform. He added a lot of propaganda, and did not outline any policies that he would create over the next 5 years. Supporters believe there will be more democratization and reforms, and addition personnel changes with political innovation to catch them up to the rest of the world. The opposition believes that Aliyev will do the opposite, and not worry about Azerbaijan becoming more democratic, leaving the country the way in its current state. Despite pressures Aliyev would receive from the international community, he will become more authoritarian, going back to Soviet conditions.
Either way the Azeri people look at what Aliyev may do, it will be crucial to Azerbaijan, and determine Aliyev’s fate as a politician. Personally, I believe that Aliyev will try to make it a more authoritarian government while still trying to make the Azeri people happy along the way to accept a transition to a more authoritarian government.
Oddly enough, on November 9, 2008, the New Azerbaijan Party proposed to hold a referendum on removing the ban on the number of terms an Azeri president can hold office. Since Aliyev is in his second presidential term, unless this referendum could get passed, the next 5 years is his last 5 years. The NAP states that the constitution should hold no such restriction on the president.
Sure enough the opposition party responded this week on November 10 demanding a fresh presidential election due to “numerous irregularities” (3). This could be because they want their shot to run in the election after they decided that refusing to run would do nothing but be a bad decision when the results came out, or because they are afraid the referendum will be passed.
Main questions regarding this information are that the opposition wants a new election because they regret boycotting the election, or because they are afraid the referendum will be passed? Also, how will the Azeri people respond to no limit to the presidential election? Will the reaction of the referendum be good, or cause suspicion about Aliyev among the Azeri people?

1.http://www.lexisnexis.com.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T5112691255&format=GNBFI&sort=DATE,A,H&startDocNo=76&resultsUrlKey=29_T5112691202&cisb=22_T5112694379&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=10962&docNo=76
2.http://www.lexisnexis.com.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T5112879009&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T5112874014&cisb=22_T5112874013&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=10962&docNo=6
3.http://www.lexisnexis.com.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T5112879009&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T5112874014&cisb=22_T5112874013&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=10962&docNo=5