Jailed Azerbaijan politician rejects National Salvation narrative

Akif Qurbanov

An imprisoned Azerbaijani opposition leader has rejected his country's official National Salvation Day, describing the 1993 political transition as an authoritarian comeback by Soviet-era elites.

Akif Qurbanov, the speaker of the Third Republic Platform political movement, made the claims in an essay written from prison. The text, published by the independent research group Khar Center, coincides with the national holiday on 15 June.

Mr Qurbanov is currently in pre-trial detention in connection with the government's investigation into the independent media outlet Toplum TV, a case that international rights groups have categorised as politically motivated.

In his essay, Qurbanov argues that the events of June 1993—officially celebrated in Azerbaijan as the day former President Heydar Aliyev saved the nation from civil war—were instead a systematic "remaning" of power by the old Soviet establishment.

This process was not national salvation," Qurbanov wrote. "It is entirely correct to call it the revanchism of the former repressive regime and Communist elite."

He compared Azerbaijan's post-Soviet transition to those of Central and Eastern Europe. He argued that countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states successfully consolidated democracy because they implemented "lustration" laws.

These laws barred former Communist Party officials and State Security Committee (KGB) agents from holding public office.

According to Qurbanov, Azerbaijan's brief democratic window under the Azerbaijan Popular Front (APF) government between 1992 and 1993 failed because of a refusal to open Soviet-era archives or purge the old nomenklatura.

He noted that the late President Abulfaz Elchibey resisted radical measures, choosing a policy of "national reconciliation" that left the old administrative and security networks intact.

Because the old elite was not legally isolated from the system, the old nomenklatura and special services network easily consolidated during the June 1993 crisis to regain power," Qurbanov wrote.

He added that this failure paved the way for Heydar Aliyev, a former Soviet Politburo member and KGB general, to establish a dynastic system. Aliyev's son, Ilham Aliyev, has ruled the energy-rich Caspian nation since 2003.

The Azerbaijani government strongly rejects such characterisations. Officially, 15 June 1993 is celebrated as the day Heydar Aliyev returned to Baku to prevent the disintegration of the newly independent republic, which was then suffering military defeats against Armenia in the first Karabakh war and facing internal mutiny.

Official state media regularly portrays the Aliyev era as one of stability, economic modernisation, and territorial restoration.

However, independent analysts and international watchdogs say the political system has become deeply authoritarian, with virtually all domestic political opposition, independent media, and civil society groups systematically dismantled.

Qurbanov was arrested in March 2024 alongside several other journalists and activists in a wave of detentions that has drawn criticism from the United States and the European Union.