Azerbaijan Town Kicks Out Mayor

If Rauf Habibov, mayor of the Azerbaijani town of Guba thought he could say whatever he wanted about his constituents, he has just been proved sorely wrong.

Angry protests in the northern town of Guba on March 1 forced mayor Habibov to resign, in an unprecedented display of people power in this ex-Soviet republic. The rioting led to a heavy police deployment, arrests and a visit by a government delegation.

Habibov, who had been mayor since 2007, enraged locals with a speech caught on camera and uploaded to YouTube, in which he made scathing remarks about people who sold off pieces of land.

“Guba’s inhabitants would sell their home country, their land, even their own family for 30 or 40 manats,” he said in the video.

On the morning of March 1, a crowd estimated at 6,000 or 7,000 massed outside the local government offices demanding Habibov’s resignation.

Police tried to disperse the protesters, detaining around 25 of them, beating others with truncheons and firing tear gas into the crowd.

The demonstrators refused to leave, and their numbers swelled hour by hour until the local police no longer had any control.

Habibov tried coming out to apologise, and promised to go, but this was never going to calm the angry mood.

“We are not protesting against the government. Our dissatisfaction is aimed at one specific person,” one of the demonstrators, Aghahuseyn Hashimov, said later. “From day one, he has addressed Guba’s residents disrespectfully. He has abused the rights of businessmen and ordinary people. He behaves like a regional boss rather than an administration head [mayor]. And people’s patience had to run out at some point.”

Protesters smashed windows in the local government building, and then stormed and burned two houses belonging to Habibov. Police managed to stop them setting fire to a third.

The government sent in riot police and interior ministry troops, and this led to more skirmishing around the town.

Rashad Aliyev, a journalist from the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Security, was among those injured.

Azerbaijan’s transport minister Zia Mammadov arrived in the afternoon, together with local member of parliament Vahid Ahmadov and a representative from President Ilham Aliyev’s office.

Ahmadov appealed to the crowd, saying, “You can’t resolve problems by burning down houses. Your protest is being discussed at the very highest level. Please be sensible and control your emotions.”

The politician apologised on Habibov’s behalf, and promised that all the protesters detained by the police would be freed and would not face prosecution.

The same evening, Guba’s deputy mayor, Sahib Mammadov, announced that Habibov had formally resigned and that he would be taking over.

“Guba’s residents of course right to be unhappy. But I do regret that a matter that could have been resolved peacefully ended in mass disturbances. It was a provocation,” Mammadov told the crowd.

A local prosecution official also spoke to the protestors, and it was he who finally managed to persuade them to disperse, according to local rights activist Jamil Mammadli.

Once the protesters had returned to their homes, a curfew was imposed on the town. Riot police are still deployed in the area to prevent any further outbreak of rioting.

All vehicles coming in and out of the town are being scrutinised at police checkpoints.

Despite the promises made by officials, those detained during the unrest remain under arrest.

Mammadli blamed the authorities for exacerbating the confrontation.

“The police and interior ministry troops got involved and used force when there was no need to. After that, the crowd became even more enraged. The attacks and assaults are a consequence of the authorities’ failure to show due care,” he said.

Opposition figures like Isa Gambar, head of the Musavat party, expressed solidarity with the protesters and sought to politicise their cause by portraying Habibov as just one tiny cog in a corrupt and disrespectful state system.

Gambar distanced himself from the rioting and said protests must always be peaceful, but added, “These events show that people’s patience is not boundless. The Aliyev government must stop and think, and it must finally start carrying out reforms, combating corruption, and allowing democracy to develop. Otherwise the government will be overthrown.”

Protestors like Rasim Abubakirov, however, were keen to dissociate their grievances from any attack on the president.

“Look, we came to this protest carrying portraits of President Ilham Aliyev. That shows that we are not acting in anyone’s political interests,” he said. “We just want to be respected.”

Heybet Amrah is a journalist with www.civil-forum.az.