Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev under pressure to usher in democratic reforms

Azerbaijan's strongman leader is facing pressure to usher in a new era of democratic reforms after his victory in last year's bloody war against Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

President Ilham Aliyev, ruler of the central Asian republic for nearly 20 years, has enjoyed a surge in support thanks to the conflict, which saw large areas of Karabakh returned to Azerbaijani control.

His success has raised fears that his autocratic regime may become even more entrenched, with opposition figures continuing to face harassment and jail.

Behind the scenes, however, western diplomats are trying to persuade him that he can now finally afford to open up Azerbaijan's political space, ending decades of one-man rule.

"President Aliyev has just won a war and now has his own legacy," one western official told The Telegraph. "If he held a free and fair election tomorrow, he'd probably win 90 per cent of the vote.

"That means he can also give civil society and the Azerbaijan opposition some political space. We have been pushing that message quite strongly to the government, and it has been acknowledged, although so far there is little sign of them acting on it."

Oil-rich Azerbaijan has a poor image in the West, where it has long been seen as a corrupt post-Soviet kleptocracy, plundered by oligarchs close to the ruling family.

Mr Aliyev, 59, took over from his dictator father, Heydar, a former KGB chief who had run the country since 1969.

The Aliyev clan's rule has been dogged by graft scandals, including the so-called "Laundromat" scheme in which billions of dollars were allegedly siphoned overseas to woo western politicians and whitewash Azerbaijan's reputation. Mr Aliyev has denied any knowledge of the practice, sometimes dubbed "Caviar diplomacy".

Earlier this month (July 6), the son of a former Azerbaijani minister agreed to hand over £4 million of suspected laundered money to Britain's National Crime Agency, after an asset-seizure case at London's High Court.

Human Rights Watch accuses Mr Aliyev's government of a "vicious crackdown" on critics, saying that so many have been jailed that the opposition has been "virtually extinguished".

Britain has trodden a fine line in relations with the president, balancing criticism of his human rights record with the need to maintain good relations because of Azerbaijan's energy wealth.

More open society

In February, Wendy Morton, a junior Foreign Office minister, called on Azerbaijan to do more to create "an open society" during a visit to the capital, Baku, where she met civil society figures.

But Anar Mammadli, a veteran activist who met Ms Morton, said much still needed to be done. "Our government should think about changing their values, but so far there is little sign of that," he told The Telegraph.

Mr Mammadli, 43, has devoted more than half of his life to political reform in Azerbaijan, setting up an election monitoring watchdog 20 years ago.

In 2014, he was sentenced to five years in jail, just months after producing a report alleging massive fraud during a presidential election. While languishing in Jail Number 13, a grim Soviet-era detention facility, he was awarded the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize by European parliamentarians.

Following international pressure, Mr Aliyev pardoned him in 2016.

Similar acts of clemency have freed other batches of political prisoners in recent years, although Mr Mammadli says much reform is purely for show. He talks dismissively of regime-financed "Gongos" (Government-organised NGOs), set up to give the illusion that civil society is thriving.

Some Azerbaijanis argue that after the chaos of Soviet Union's collapse, Mr Aliyev's stern hand has at least ensured stability. Straddling the Caucasus and the Middle East, the country lies in a volatile neighbourhood. Yet its population of 10 million (mainly a mixture of Shia and Sunni Muslims) remains largely secular, with little of the Islamic radicalism that has blighted the wider region.

Last year's war, which claimed about 5,000 lives, painted both Azerbaijan and Armenia in a grim light, with human rights abuses on both sides. However, western diplomats believe there is now a chance for change, should Mr Aliyev choose to take it.

Already, they say he is slowly dismantling the clan-based patronage that thrived under his father, with cronies replaced by technocrats. The recapture of much of Karabakh also promises a huge construction boom, rehousing half a million Azerbaijanis who fled when Armenian separatists seized it in the 1990s.

Yet despite securing his own political future as the leader who won Karabakh back, diplomats fear Mr Aliyev may still prefer the role of popular strongman to belated democrat.

"Right now, the government is too busy concentrating on redeveloping the reclaimed territories," said the western official. "Real political reform is taking a back seat."