The EU has kept up its pressure on Belarus but seems far more lax where other regional authoritarian leaders are concerned. This is particularly true of President Ilham Aliyev in Baku, whose country has the virtue of oil and gas deposits the EU covets.
If the present pattern continues, even these remnants and the remaining political parties may disappear by the 2010 legislative elections, and if that happens, it will be hard to distinguish Azerbaijan from neighboring Turkmenistan.
Presidential term limits were created to prevent politicians from clinging to power and to place system-based procedure above personality-driven politics. But it seems the impulse of many world leaders to view themselves as indispensable remains strong. Azerbaijan is just the latest in a long line of countries whose arrogant leaders are turning them into feudal fiefdoms.
