Lessons in democracy: What the West can learn from Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, a nation that has endured two bloody conflicts with Armenia in 1990 and 2020 to protect and later liberate Karabakh, is gradually recovering and looking towards the future.

President Ilham Aliyev, who has led the country since 2003, enjoys broad support from the population, British journalist Paul Baldwin, who visited Lachin during Sunday's snap parliamentary elections, said in his article in Daily Express, according to Report.

Azerbaijan is a very young state that gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The country has successfully embarked on a capitalist path of development, largely due to the vast reserves of oil and gas on the Caspian Sea shelf. From 2000 to 2014, Azerbaijan was one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

After the victory in 2020, Azerbaijan regained control over Karabakh and launched a large-scale reconstruction program for the region called "The Great Return." The goal is to bring home 700,000 Azerbaijanis who fled the war in the early 1990s.

According to the author, this is a "Herculean task." The scale of the work is breathtaking. "I have visited new towns built from the ground up, the entire infrastructure, gas, electricity, water, banks, shops, schools, everything. And it has only just started. And, all these new towns, and there will be many, are entirely self-sufficient in energy; the power coming from solar panels and hydro.

For Britain in the post-Brexit world, Azerbaijan opens up great opportunities for investment and cooperation. The country already supplies oil and gas to the EU, and British companies such as BP are the largest foreign investors in Azerbaijan.

Baldwin also shares his impressions of what he saw during elections. The West should be more careful with assessments as Azerbaijan, despite challenges, is confidently looking to the future and strengthening its democratic institutions,

He ends the article with an amusing phrase: " And as for democracy, it is worth pausing to reflect that we live in a country where only one in five people voted for Keir Starmer yet we have a massive majority Government with almost zero effective opposition.

And if that is democracy, as someone once said, I'm a banana."