Oppositional newspaper “Azadliq” has released a second hidden cam video on Saturday where the leading MP from the ruling YAP party, Gular Ahmadova, is asking for a million dollar bribe for getting someone a seat in Azerbaijan’s national parliament. In the new video, Ahmadova names the country’s President Ilham Aliyev and his wife Mehriban Aliyeva among people directing lists of people to be “elected” into the parliament (click here for the link to the second video in Azeri).
In the new video, which seems to be another part of the million dollar parliament seat bribe conversation revealed by the first video, MP Gular Ahmadova chides Elshad Abdullayev for double-crossing her and trying to work with other people, namely President Aliyev’s late uncle Agil Aliyev, to secure his “election” to the parliament. She recalls examples of two other people, mentioned as “Algish” and “Musa”, whom she and her associates “got into the parliament”, but who went on to work with others: jailed former minister Ali Insanov and the current mayor of Baku Hajibala Abutalibov. “This time it can’t happen”, warns Ahmadova.
Seconding her, Sevinj Babyeva, acting as the intermediary between Ahmadova and Abdullayev, tells him “if you started working with Master Ramiz [the head of Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehtiyev], if you went with him, you have to keep on working with him”. This seems to confirm that Gular Ahamadova was really representing Ramiz Mehdiyev in the bribery scheme.
Then, in a striking conclusion, Ahmadova says: “You know, there people who are Farhad’s people [jailed former minister Farhad Aliyev]. They know that this is Farhad’s list; this is Ali Insanov’s list [another jailed former minister]. They know this [list] is for Kamaladdin Heydarov [the current top oligarch and minister of Emergency Situations], this is for Ramiz Mehdiyev [the head of Presidential Administration], this is for Ilham Aliyev [President], this is for Mehriban Aliyeva [President’s wife].”
Both videos were sent to “Azadliq” newspaper by Elshad Abdullayev, an exiled rector of a private university shut down by the government, who now lives in France. He is the person with whom Gular Ahmadova is seen haggling on the videos over the bribe amount. In his letter to “Azadliq”, Abdullayev noted that he sent the second video in order to prove that Ahmadova was not acting on her own behalf in the bribery scheme, as some Azerbaijani officials claimed after the first video was released. He knew that by herself Ahmadova was not capable to guarantee someone a seat in the parliament. Rather, she has convinced him that the bribe money will go to the head of Presidential Administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev.
After the first video, Gular Ahmadova was expelled from the ruling party and the parliament, and regime officials released statements condemning both her and Abdullayev. However, many see this as an attempt to use her as a scape-goat, while the more important implications from the videos – the illegitimacy of the parliament and the personal involvement in bribery schemes and election falsifications by President Aliyev, his wife, and other high officials, like Ramiz Mehdiyev – are conveniently overlooked.
(Azadliq, Azeri Report)
