Rule one of the Dictator's Handbook: Allow no one else to seriously challenge you in an election. Rule Two: Spend enough of your nation's treasure to lure a popular Western entertainer to distract from Rule One. Previously, President Ilham Aliyev, son of a strongman who inherited his father's distaste for democracy, enticed Lady Gaga to perform, then Mariah Carey. Now Aliyev has booked pop star Christina Aguilera for the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix on April 28.
Aliyev has so thoroughly suffocated democracy in Azerbaijan that he will certainly win a fourth term by a wide margin. The campaign is entirely uncompetitive. Two opposition parties are calling for a boycott. Aliyev moved up the election date by six months, perhaps in order to get it out of the way before the auto race, which presumably will be more competitive than the political one.
If Aguilera has time, she may want to poke around Azerbaijan's jails. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Azerbaijan ranks among the worst jailers of journalists in the world, with at least 10 imprisoned when its last survey was completed in December.
Editorial on 04/14/2018