AZERBAIJAN LIBERAL PARTY

 

 

 

 

FUNDAMENTAL PROVISIONS OF THE PROGRAM OF

AZERBAIJAN LIBERAL PARTY

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our slogan:

DEMOCRACY, STABILITY, SECURITY, PROSPERITY

 

Our major goal is to build a strong democratic state, which could take its place in the civilised world, where the processes of globalization and integration demand intensified attention to the problem of in the sphere of the unification of the economic, legal and political basis.

Our priorities are the human rights and freedoms, democracy, rule of law.

Azerbaijan is ruled today by the oligarchic regime, which has privatised both the government and business. The consequences of this are: dictate of the monopolies, total corruptibility and isolation of the government from the people, legal nihilism of the bureaucracy, polarisation of the society, poverty, defencelessness of the citizens from the state despotism, inability of the society to influence the activities of the state.

Democratic rhetoric of the authorities and imitation of democracy with an authoritarian dictatorial reality, total falsification of the elections, the use of force against peaceful demonstrators, political prisoners, arrest of independent journalists, complete monopoly over the electronic media, de-facto ban on the activity of the political opposition, ban on the mass rallies, etc., have brought the society to great depression, dissappointment and devaluation of the very idea of democracy.

 

 

HUMAN RIGHTS. DEMOCRACY.

 

It is our firmest belief that the inviolable guarantees of observance and defence of rights of all the people, living in our country, without dependence on gender, ethnicity, religious and political beliefs, are the supreme purpose of the state.

Democracy for us is justice, dialogue, tolerance, initiative, energy of the prosperous society.

Azerbaijan must become the country of free people, civil society and jural state.

The state should serve the society, not the other way round. Government must open to public and answerable to it. All must be equal before the law and the courts.

We hold that the criteria of genuine democracy must contain first of all democratic norms of social justice.

Delimitation between the political authority and economy is the most important condition for the establishment of the genuine civil society, as a basis for democracy.

The international experience has shown that there is a stable link between democracy, economic freedoms and standard of living.

There is no alternative for us except democracy. Human rights and liberties, human dignity are a priority for us.

To realise this goal we consider the following necessary:

-         balance of state institutions, genuine separation of powers;

-         creation of genuinely independent judiciary (all the rights, prescribed in the Constitution, laws and programs, would never be observed and guaranteed without the independent judiciary);

-         guarantees for observance and defence of human rights and liberties, human dignity;

-         respect for human personality;

-         equality of rights and opportunities;

-         guarantees for observance of the rights of political opposition (pluralism, free political competition);

-         securing the free and just elections;

-         creation of guarantees for the freedom of media;

-         support and assistance to all forms of civil society, self-organisation and self-government of the citizens;

-         for the development of the middle class the state must create: conditions, opportunities for self-actualization, motivation, equalization of chances;

-         unconditional fulfilment (genuine, not formal) of the obligations and commitments undertaken before the international organisations (Councils of Europe, OSCE, EU), obligations and commitments effluent from the international agreements in the sphere of human rights, to which Azerbaijan is a party;

-         the legal system of Azerbaijan must be brought to conformity with the European Convention of Human Rights;

-         support for religious and ethnic tolerance;

-         priority of human rights and freedoms in all spheres of activity of the central and local governing bodies;

-         parliamentary and public control over the armed forces and police;

-         defence of human rights and property, creation of efficiently functioning free market economy, providing for security of a citizen, the society and the state.

 

There can be no freedom for individual citizen where there is no diversity, multiformity of sources for life support and freedom of economic choice.

 

 

ECONOMIC POLICY

 

Increase of GDP, which is now presented as high rate of economic growth, cannot be accepted as an index of growth, because it is just the direct result of the high oil prices on the world markets (90 percent of Azerbaijan's export is oil) and does not represent the actual growth of economy (in terms of GDP growth we in line with such countries as Mauritania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola).

Economic policy in Azerbaijan demands today the realisation of deep political, legal, economic, social and institutional reforms, directed towards the liquidation of the total corruption and monopolism, bureaucratic permissiveness, towards defence of the human rights and inviolability of the private property, towards the creation of effective socially orientated market economy.

The state in such conditions should take upon itself the indirect regulation of the market economy, combining social priorities with the financial discipline.

In order to create effective socially orientated market economy the following is necessary:

-         creation of a harmonious integral system of legislative acts (new Civil and Trade codes, norms of business law, banking law, investment law), matching these acts to the European standards;

-         creation of the social infrastructure, based on the clear legal basis, principles of personal initiative, inviolability of the private property;

-         strengthening the antimonopoly measures;

-         joining the WTO;

-         transparency of the budgets at all levels;

-         creation of the free trade areas;

-         legalization of the shadow economy through "financial amnesty" and favourable conditions for investments into production (according to international experts shadow economy in Azerbaijan is 60 percent of the total);

-         development of the non-oil sector.

 

 

AGRICULTURE REFORMS.

 

More than a half of the republic's population lives in rural areas, which makes the agricultural reform a priority for the country's economy.

However, in terms of agricultural developments we are outsiders even in the CIS (during 2006 agricultural production increased only 0.9 percent).

At the same time only 2.8 percent of the budget was allocated for the development of agriculture, whereas a norm for a developed country is 10 percent.

There are advantageous conditions in the country for development and diversification of agriculture (from 11 climate types 9 can be found in Azerbaijan). However, the unreasoned state policy, when the necessary starting conditions for the producers of agricultural products (farmers) were not secured, and the technological backwardness have brought this very important segment of economy to a decline, resulting in a mass migration from rural areas to the cities and the near abroad (more than 2 million).

The aim of our agricultural policy is the food security of the country, rise in importance of the real production, development of multiform agroindustrial production with the use of the latest technologies, development of the agroindustrial complex on an economical basis of the cooperation-liberal orientations of the rural producers.

The Principle: Combination of market relations with the state support and weighted protectionism.

The state should accept the function of economic regulation and structural reorganisation in accordance with the principles of the agriculture policy.

In order to achieve this aim it is necessary to:

-         create a market infrastructure in agriculture;

-         encourage creation of medium and large farms in order to form an effective farming sector;

-         ensure a starting impulse for cooperating rural producers - these co-operatives, uniting farmers, associations of large-scale businesses and farmers with scientific technic centres, other commercial unions of rural producers should lay the foundation of agricultural market infrastructure;

-         create divaricate co-operative structures, banking nets, insurance companies;

-         provide state support to agriculture producers proportionate to the investment in production;

-         include the segment of personal subsidiary farming into the sphere of state agriculture policy;

-         create favourable market environment, where local and regional monopolists would be standing opposite unions, associations of producers, organised in a co-operative manner;

-         work out an optimum price, tax, credit and customs policy;

-         convert to a single land tax, which is determined by the quality of land and can be paid in kind;

-         take measures securing scientific, technical, technological and personnel strengthening of the agriculture (the use of the most perspective technologies, securing high-quality and competitive products, its ecologic safety, which should be encouraged by benefits, credits and other measures);

-         purposefully conduct state scientific and technical policy, apply scientific production programs on the basis of a system of incentives for producers, create an organizational infrastructure for the realisation of these goals (to create a department of research and a department of application within the Ministry of Agriculture, encompassing all the agroindustrial structures);

-         create with the state participation a general-purpose market infrastructure: wholesale markets, exchanges and information systems, monitoring the agricultural prices;

-         adopt a comprehensive agriculture law to regulate intersectoral links within agriculture, measures on readjustment of unprofitable farms, credit and insurance, measures supporting selection, seed-farming, livestock breeding, veterinary, etc.;

-         ecologisation of economical activity;

-         state regulation with the aim of levelling the price disparity in the agriculture markets (market intervention, prevention of importation of dumping price food, subsidising the farmers);

-         create a special social policy for the rural society for its adaptation to the changing conditions;

-         stimulate creation of consumers association (public control);

-         develop the agroindustrial complex with the foreign investment and advanced technologies (experience of Israel, EU, etc.).

 

 

INDUSTRY.

 

Azerbaijan (excluding oil sector) has froze in 2004 in relation to its industrial growth.

Taking into account the present level of competition in the world market and modest resources of such a small country as Azerbaijan, we find the development of light and food industry most rational.

At the same time there is a need for reconstruction and modernisation of those industry segments, which would be directed to produce competitive products, or would be important for the strategic interests of the state.

 

 

SMALL-SCALE, MEDIUM AND LARGE-SCALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

 

Entrepreneurs compose the most passionary part of the society. All the favourable conditions and equal opportunities for the realisation of their abilities should be created. Observance of economic rights and freedoms, inviolability of private property should be guaranteed. Only then can they become a locomotive of Azerbaijani economy, of its non-oil sector to be precise.

The carried out privatisation has not given due effect: the middle class has not been formed. This fact proves that economy is driven by the energy of initiative. Property is lifeless in essence. Initiative, however, can be effective only in a free country. In a non-free country, such as Azerbaijan, with the oligarchic regime and monopolism any initiative is suppressed (the last report of the "Heritage" Foundation has made notice of the facts of suppressing the freedom of entrepreneurship and grave breaches of investment rights in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is listed among the economically non-free countries, holding 107th place by the level of economic freedom, while neighbouring Georgia holds 35th place).

By the freedom of entrepreneurship Azerbaijan holds 96th place in the ratings of the World Bank.

This day's export figures, as a barometer, show the level and quality of the private sector and its noncompetitiveness (in 2006 Azerbaijan presented only 50 names to the list of competitive products in CIS, while Kazakhstan, for instance, presented 250).

Free entrepreneurship depends on democracy, economic freedoms and free competition. Therefore, democratic reforms are primary.

The development of small-scale and medium entrepreneurship is a strategic aim for us, because this contingent composes the nucleus of the middle class – the main carrier of civil society values, securing the guarantees for human rights, limiting and controlling the state activity.

To achieve this goal the following is necessary:

-         separation of power and business: it is necessary to practically implement the liberal-democratic concept of the separation of power and business. The main elements of that are: the independent judiciary, the independent parliament, independent media, free elections, honest political competition, and transparency in activity of all the branches of government, their mutual responsibility and accountability;

-         demonopolization (anti-monopoly measures);

-         creation of equal conditions;

-         creation of conditions for state funding of small-scale and medium businesses;

-         granting favourable long-term credits and exemption from taxation on the formation stage for small-scale and medium entrepreneurship;

-         stimulating credit policy and long-term crediting for the large-scale entrepreneurship in the non-oil sector;

-         well-considered taxation, insurance, customs tariffs;

-         gradual withdrawal of the state from the entrepreneurial sphere, reserving the controlling functions over the right implementation and observance of legislative norms in the sphere of free competition.

 

 

OIL REVENUES MANAGEMENT.

 

Oil could have played a role of a stimulator for the country's economy. The character of the ruling regime, however, has not allowed using the financial resources from the oil revenues in a right direction.

Today the country is not going the civilised Norwegian way, but the Nigerian one, when the lion's share of oil revenues is directed towards the enrichment of the ruling clique.

According to the experts' predictions decrease in oil extraction would start as early as 2013, which makes it imperative to develop the non-oil sector today.

Oil is not a goal, but a mean for the development of the country. It must become the locomotive of our economy.

For that the following is necessary:

-         parliamentary and public control over the oil revenue and oil fund;

-         transformation of the State Oil Company (SOCAR) into a joint-stock company;

-         transparency and openness of the oil revenues at all levels;

-         investments from the oil revenues must primarily be invested into the human factor: education, health care, science, as well as the development of social infrastructure;

-         oil is an exhaustible resource – therefore a share of investment should be directed towards the development of alternative energy resources. Azerbaijan has favourable natural conditions for that - sun and wind (creation of solar plants and wind-power generators);

-         under the conditions of hard competition in the world market it is necessary to develop and invest into priority areas (agriculture, transit potential, tourism) and abandon the obviously unprofitable ones.

 

 

FOREIGN INVESTMENTS.

 

It is important for us to create favourable conditions in the country for the influx of foreign investments.

For that the following is necessary:

-         effective mechanisms for defence of investors' rights;

-         stimulation of investments into the non-oil sector, production with innovative technologies;

-         securing the safety of foreign investments by legislative measures and state guarantees for large-scale investments;

-         fulfillment of the commitments from the oil contracts with the foreign companies.

 

 

TAXATION POLICY.

 

We find it necessary to:

-         lower the taxes (including VAT) and differentiate them;

-         create a substantive legislative basis for the elimination of internal and external double taxation;

-         facilitate taxation conditions for the development of free entrepreneurship;

-         exempt from taxes the capital, invested into the latest technologies and the development of production;

-         create favourable taxation conditions to support the development of agriculture, small-scale and medium businesses;

-         create flexible mechanism of taxation to withdraw to budget the excess profits from the exploitation of natural resources;

-         gradually harden the state policy in the field of taxation;

-         introduce the progressive rate of taxation for large-scale businesses;

-         exempt from taxation certain categories of low-income citizens.

 

 

ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY.

 

The present regime lacks the ability to fight corruption, since it is the creator and source of the system of total corruption. We believe that one should grow rich with the state, not at its expense. We need an honest government, responsible to the people.

We hold that to fight corruption the following is necessary:

-         securing transparency, openness and wide public control over the activities of all the national and local governing bodies at all levels;

-         securing parliamentary control over the activities of the executive branch and budget execution;

-         extermination of systematic corruption in all the levels of government;

-         toughening the criminal responsibility for the crime of corruption and ensuring the inevitability of punishment;

-         increase in wages of the judges, civil servants and all other state employers.

 

 

SOCIAL POLICY.

 

We believe that social policy must become the basis for the well-being of the society and the people, a stimulus for the economic development. For this the state social policy must provide for economic and political activity of the people, employment, safeguards against poverty, purposefulness of social aid to the most vulnerable categories of the population (elderly, children, disabled), social equilibrium in the society.

It is impossible to see any real social policy of this state in the absence of the civilised public institutions, ineffectiveness of the institutional investors, insurance and pension funds because of total corruption, and, as the result of the aforementioned, in the presence of low pensions and benefits, high level of poverty and unemployment.

The society today is extremely polarised, segregated between the incredibly wealthy (due to corruption) successful minority and the impoverished majority.

The notion that first the economic growth should be secured, then the social reforms could go forth, is deeply wrong. The economic growth is impossible without the social reforms. Social upheavals cost much more than the social peace.

The main feature of present situation in the social sphere is the disavowal from the principle of justice, which is the pledge of freedom. This situation has brought the state to refusing its constitutional social obligations on one hand and the loss of faith in the state on the other.

Our social policy program provides for the following:

-         national and local programs for providing employment;

-         creation of the genuinely independent trade unions;

-         creation of an effective system of unemployment benefits;

-         creation of an effective system of social security for the most vulnerable part of the population (elderly, children, disabled);

-         increase of state funding for education and health care;

-         creation of efficient mechanisms for medical and social insurance;

-         increase (2-3 times) of the national income's share, directed towards pension payments;

-         support for the young families, maternity and children;

-         national and local programs of providing free or cheap lodging for the low-income strata of the population (creation of a really working efficient mortgage system: credits for up to 20-30 years with the minimal interest rates);

-         income disparity coefficient must be brought to the European norm;

-         social partnership: when the authorities, trade unions and capital negotiate on the rate of minimal wage.

 

 

HEALTH CARE.

 

Taking into mind the present hard social conditions of the people health care should be free with the well-developed private sector.

A complex law on the people's health should be adopted, which would include non-medical matters as well, such as problems of environment, safe food, social aspects, etc.

We envisage the following:

-         a system of compulsory medical insurance should be created;

-         compulsory annual clinical examination;

-         a legislative basis should be adopted for creation and widening of the private medical sector;

-         a national program on raising the level of medical workers' skills and their probation in the leading medical centres of the world should be introduced;- effective state control over the quality of pharmaceutical medicaments should be enforced;

-         pharmaceutical industry should be developed with the participation and control from the world leading companies;

-         a national program on supplying the medical institutions with the latest technologies and medicaments, know-how, should be introduced.

 

 

EDUCATION.

 

In any civilised society the level of education is directly proportional to success and income. Knowledge is convertible into prosperity. In Azerbaijan it is the other way round: income and success are directly proportional to the proximity and relation to the power holders, which often leads to the triumph of ignorance. Therefore, the best brains have either emigrated abroad or stay in an "internal emigration" here without being able to find opportunities for self-actualisation. Accordingly, it is imperative for us to drastically change this situation.

Education must become the main priority of state policy.

We envisage the following:

-         complete transfer to the Bologna system of education;

-         compulsory free secondary education;

-         progressive specialisation of education;

-         single state examination for the attaining of school-leaving certificate (examinations in mandatory and optional disciplines);

-         admittance to the institutions of higher education on the results of the aforementioned single state examination;

-         free education in the institutions of higher education for those attaining the highest points in the single state examination;

-         computerisation and on-line connection for all the educational institutions in the country;

-         advance of wages for the teaching staff;

-         development of the educational private sector;

-         opening the branches of world's leading educational institutions in the country;

-         diversification of funding for the educational institutions;

-         democratisation of the public control over education: public school-boards, university autonomy, etc.

 

 

STATE STRUCTURE. DECENTRALISATION.

 

We find it important to carry out a constitutional reform in the country and transform the state structure from presidential republic to parliamentary-presidential republic, as a transitional stage on the way to parliamentary republic.

The following is necessary to carry out the reform:

-         a share of power should be transferred from the President to the Parliament;

-         presidential and parliamentary terms of office should be decreased to 4 years;

-         members of parliament should be elected using a mixed (majority, proportional-party-list) election system (political parties in power should bear the responsibility for the implemented policies);

-         parliamentary control over the executive branch should be established;

-         the highest ranking officials of the republic (prime-minister, prosecutor-general, cabinet members, etc.) should be appointed jointly by the Parliament and the President;

-         government's responsibility before the Parliament should be established;

-         the principle of the separation of powers should be sustained;

-         the system of checks and balances should be strengthened;

-         really independent judiciary should be created;

-         reform of local self-government should be introduced: regional representative councils should be elected for a 2 year term, regional high ranking officials (governors, regional prosecutors, etc.) should be elected for a 2 year term, city, town, village councils should be created with a 2 year term and city, town, village mayors should be elected for a 2 year term;

-         the powers of the municipal organs should be increased at the expense of the powers of the central governing organs in the fields, which have no nation-wide significance;

-         a notion that the powers not vested in the central government belong to the municipal organs should be introduced into the Constitution;

-         the municipal organs should have the power of taxation in favour of the local budgets on the basis of national legislation;

-         powers and rights of the municipalities should be brought in conformity with the European Charter on Local Self-Government.

 

 

 

ELECTORAL REFORM.

 

It is our opinion that the electoral reform should guarantee the free and honest elections, justly represent the feelings and convictions of the people, guarantee the equality of different participants of the election process.

The following is necessary for that:

-         election commissions at all levels should be formed on parity between the government and the opposition;

-         wide public control over the conduct of elections: presence of the representatives of the public, candidates, media, NGOs, international organisations as monitors an all the polling-stations at all time, including the actual counting of the ballots, which should be recorded on video;

-         complete exclusion of the representatives of central and local executive authorities and police from interference in the process;

-         funding of the election campaigns at all levels exclusively from the state and local budgets on an equal basis.

 

 

WOMEN'S ROLE IN POLITICS.

 

It is our opinion that women's role in politics should not be increased by establishing quotas on gender basis, as in the soviet times, but on the basis of civil and political activity, intellectual level and education.

We consider the following necessary:

-         conditions should be created for wider representation of women in the central and local governing bodies;

-         social conditions should be created to facilitate greater independence for women;

 

Women's rights should be view in the context of human right, not separately from them.

 

 

QARABAGH CONFLICT.

 

Qarabagh problem is the fundamental and most painful problem for the country. Our priority is the peaceful resolution of the conflict within the framework of international law on the basis of the principles of territorial integrity, inviolability of frontiers and sovereignty, which presuppose the return of refugees and internally displaced people to the places of their original permanent settlement: return of Azerbaijanis to Armenia and of Armenians to Azerbaijan.

It is our belief that this problem can be resolved peacefully under three important conditions:

-         first, genuine democratisation of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, their transformation into open societies;

-         second, establishment in both countries of legitimate governments with unquestioning trust of the population;

-         third, the most important, rapid integration of the South Caucasus to the European Union, which can give an opportunity to resolve the conflict in the context of a "road map" to the EU.

 

 

FOREIGN POLICY.

 

Azerbaijan's aspiration to come onto the strip of respectable balancing in the international affairs has not succeeded. Abrupt shies from side to side, absence of a realistic conceptual line in conducting dialogue with the neighbouring countries and the world great powers, disregard for the country's commitments before the international organisations, such as the Council of Europe, OSCE and the EU, have all formed an image of an unpredictable partner for our country.

We believe that a strategic direction for our country must be clearly formulated.

Our principal strategic aim is the full membership of Azerbaijan in the European Union and NATO.

To achieve this goal the following is necessary:

-         genuine and rapid integration of Azerbaijan into Euro-Atlantic political, economic, military structures, the united family of European democracies;

-         establishment of reliable international guaranties for the country's security;

-         participation in the wide international anti-terrorism coalition;

-         deepening of integration within GUAM: Turkey's joining to the organisation (TUGAM), taking into mind its NATO membership (unlike the present GUAM member-states), which experience can accelerate the integration of GUAM member-states into NATO.

 

At the same time we find it necessary to cooperate with all the world states, not least with the neighbouring ones, especially Russia, on the basis of mutually beneficial and equal partnership.

 

 

 

 

P.S.

 

Reforms are not carried out for the sake of reforms. They must be clearly directed towards the prosperity of the nation.

Today, the oligarchic regime, total corruption, fusion of power and business, legal nihilism of the bureaucracy rule out the efficiency of any reform.

The Constitution and laws in Azerbaijan have a declarative character and carry out an export function. They do not work within the country.

 

Not a single program can succeed, if four main conditions are not met:

1)      Political will and honesty of the authorities;

2)      Clear state program, open and comprehensible to every citizen;

3)      Professional resources with distribution of clear powers and responsibility alike;

4)      Wide public support.

 

Only the true democrats, who proved that by their deeds not words, must be in power. We think that a democrat is not the one, who speaks about democracy a lot, but the one, who really has the democratic scale of values, world outlook and disposition.

 

 

(A person should feel oneself in his/her country as sitting in a soft armchair – with comfort and security, not as sitting in an inquisition chair with spikes and in shackles).