Crushed by the disastrous election results on 6 November, the Azeri opposition is slowly regaining its strength. Following protests and requests to organize new elections, it has reorganized itself into a new coalition, the Democratic Front. More than 20 000 joined the rally on Saturday the 19th of October in Baku (20-NOV-2005).
The rallies of joint opposition have been held 3 times since the elections in Baku with more and more people joining to the protestants. Despite of obstacles and pressure in the regions, the regional opposition activists hold the regular protest actions in different regions of Azerbaijan. On November 16 about 600 candidates for parliament announced their refusal to recognize parliamentary elections results and representatives of ruling party were among them. Now the Democratic Front includes the biggest opposition bloc Azadlig (“Freedom), National Unity movement, YES, Youth movement “Magam” National Democratic Party as well as hundreds of candidates with broken rights.
Rallies in Baku
Since the election day, the joint opposition held 3 sanctioned demonstrations of joint opposition in Baku, all of which took place in Gelebe (Victory) square. According to the numerous information agencies the number of protestants is estimated to be minimum 20,000-25,000-30,000 people in progressive manner. The reason of the increase of people at every following demonstration is the unity in the opposition front, which is a worth-mentioning factor. According to the article “The Azeri opposition unite in a new coalition” written by French journalist François GREMY on the 18-th of November “The Democratic Front has overcome its first hurdle, that of uniting all political figures of the opposition, which was not an easy task considering the discordant and fractured domestic political scene”.
On the rallies the opposition leader of Musavat Party Isa Gambar encouraged the protestants to protest in a peaceful manner and not to give the government the cause for provocations and repressions. He warned people abut the possibility of provocations during the rally to destabilize the situation. In addition to the intention to struggle until the victory of the democratic forces, many of the oppositions leaders, who made a speech on the rally, encouraged the West to support democracy in Azerbaijan and not “to sacrifice democracy to oil interests” the importance of WEST involvement into the democratic progress in Azerbaijan.
The most frequent slogans are “Freedom”, “Resignation for Ilham Aliyev” and “tents to the square” with the reference to the peaceful sit-in in Kiev. The Resolution of the rally demanded the liquidation of election results, the appointment of new elections, punishment for falsifiers and the liberty to political prisoners.
On every rally there are approximately 1,000 police officers, armed with handcuffs and batons, waiting for the end of the rally in full military readiness to respond any disorder. Though the conducted demonstrations were held without any serious incident, still on the election day there are received numerous reports from students on the restrictions at universities to attend the rally as well as certain transport restrictions (blocked roads, change of routes of the public transport, etc) to the rally venue.
Regional Protest Actions 
Since the 6-th of November, there have been held dozens of protest actions, organized by the opposition activists in numerous regions of Azerbaijan. The participants were protesting against the falsified elections and demanded the new elections. The protest actions include both pickets and demonstrations, which are not always sanctioned. According to the information received from the regional headquarters of various opposition parties, the regional people are faced pressure if they attend the rally and generally, there are lots of restrictions and attempts to threaten the population. The usual scenarios are that either opposition activists are detained at the beginning of the day to undermine the proper organizational of the action or the activists are detained during/after the protest action to teach the “lesson” to the rest of population.
For example, the demonstration in Zagatala region with about 1,500 protesters (electoral district No 110 and No 111) on the 15-th of November was dispersed by the police. Fifteen people were arrested and sentenced to 7-10 days of imprisonment by the court, which was held at the closed doors. Nevertheless, the opposition activists stated that they would continue protest actions against election falsifications.
Another example can be the protest action organized on the 16-th of November in Nardaran settlement (election district #28), the participants of which wanted to demonstrate the support to Rauf Arifoglu, representative of Azadlig bloc, who according to them “won victory in this district, though authorities declared Eldar Guliyev as winner”. During the day there were reported a number of cases, when police interfered to the process of organization of the protest action, including the detain of Rauf Arifoglu and his supporters on the way to Nardaran. The group was taken to the police station without any explanations, but was released in a few hours. Besides, after the rally, Mamedtagi Babayev – the person empowered to act for Rauf Arifoglu – was arrested and taken to the police station as well.
