Emil Sanamyan

While the presidential elections in Azerbaijan expected this autumn are not likely to bring any surprises, and the current president, as long as he is alive and well and continues in office, the Azerbaijani political scene can not be considered entirely stable and predictable. The main source of tension and potential future volatility is the uncertainty surrounding the issue of succession to Heydar Aliyev. As different political groups and personalities begin to position themselves for the coming struggle, the presidential campaign may become a proving ground of sorts for forces both outside and within the ruling elite who are looking beyond October 1998....

With just a few days left before the presidential elections, the former Soviet Armenian boss of 14 years is reported to be in the lead. What do we have? Polls conducted by an organization ostensibly allied with the caretaker president Robert Kocharian, give Karen Demirchian some 40% of the vote. Kocharian himself is said to come second with 30% and the leader of the National-Democratic Union and first post-Soviet Armenian Prime-Minister Vazgen Manukian third with 15%....

Almost every day now media outlets report on the continuous multinational effort to forge out a final peace settlement in the nine year-old conflict between the government of Azerbaijan and the people of the de- facto independent Nagorno Karabakh Republic-Artsakh. Their reports generally contain a brief on a recent round of talks, where parties would once again reiterate their incompatible positions, with mediators privately promising a diplomatic breakthrough soon. Over the years such reports have become enveloped in the usual repetition of grim statistics: tallies numbering the dead and refugees, and areas occupied....