Azerbaijan.US
Natig Jafarli, head of the REAL Party, argues that expectations of Western intervention in Azerbaijan’s political process are misguided and rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of how global politics works.
According to Jafarli, Azerbaijan’s political landscape has remained largely unchanged since the restoration of independence. Both the ruling establishment and the traditional opposition, he says, have been dominated for decades by the same figures or by groups sharing the same mindset.
While the authorities have acted primarily out of self-preservation since the early 1990s, the opposition has often focused more on controlling the opposition space itself than on genuinely competing for power.
Jafarli notes that the authorities have systematically discredited the institution of elections, turning this into a deliberate tool of political engineering. However, he stresses that traditional opposition forces share responsibility for the erosion of electoral trust. Instead of mobilizing voters and creating political momentum through elections, they repeatedly discouraged participation, effectively reinforcing the same system they publicly criticized.
One of the core illusions Jafarli challenges is the belief that the United States or Europe will step in to impose democratic elections or resolve political issues on Azerbaijan’s behalf.
He argues that Western institutions consistently act based on strategic interests, not moral expectations. Human rights and political freedoms are raised when they align with those interests-and sidelined when they do not.
While acknowledging that Western actors have at times helped secure the release of political prisoners, Jafarli emphasizes that such interventions were never altruistic. They occurred within broader geopolitical calculations, not as part of a sustained commitment to systemic democratic change in Azerbaijan.
He illustrates this logic with an anecdote from a meeting with representatives of major foreign energy companies operating in the country. In his view, a fragmented parliament with multiple factions-capable of scrutinizing contracts and demanding labor or social guarantees-would complicate business operations and increase costs. For external economic actors, a predictable and centralized decision-making system is often more convenient than a pluralistic one.
Jafarli’s central argument is that democracy, elections, and human rights in Azerbaijan cannot be outsourced. These issues, he says, are the responsibility of Azerbaijani citizens themselves. Without sustained voter engagement and electoral participation, no external pressure can produce lasting political change.
He concludes that reliance on outside saviors has led to political stagnation. Those who once promised revolutions and mass mobilization now find themselves isolated, appealing abroad for support that is unlikely to come.
The real failure, Jafarli argues, lies not with the West, but with decades of strategic miscalculations that weakened the very institutions capable of driving change from within.
