Azerbaijan, the countdown | Reportage | Arte

November 6th, 2005, 8 million Azerbaïjani elect 125 deputies among more than 2000 candidates. This elections are under high monitoring, as the president Ilham Aliyev fears the advent of an «orange» revolution comparable to the movement which swept the ukrainien government in 2004. The elections are followed with an attentive eye by the Occident, because the young republic of Azerbaïdjan resulting from the Soviet ex-empire is at the crossroads of all the influences. In north, Russia, at south, Iran… Azerbaïdjan has oilfields in the Caspian sea, which have just been connected to the Western markets by a pipeline connecting the Caspian sea to the Mediterranean. But people do not benefit from the money of oil: in spite of the 20% of growth, 41% of the population live below the poverty line. For the opposition, muzzled and disparate, these elections in November are a true occasion to reverse the system in place. But they are only a few tens of “orange” militants to face each weekend the batons of the police forces. Government as well as the opposition, all fears that endemic poverty does not push some to turn to the most radical movements of Islam. A fear reinforced by the immediate proximity of Iran, which tries to insidiously export the precepts of its Islamic revolution in Azerbaïdjan. In a country predominantly laic, is « the green danger » a phantasm or a reality?