President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev is pretending to be in dialogue with the opposition. This is what politician Angela Elibegova said during a March 7 press conference.

According to her, certain processes continue to unfold in Azerbaijan this year and can be more covert than overt. “The authorities are trying to show that they are in dialogue with the opposition, but if the situation intensifies, there will be many more detainees than there were in the past,” the politician stated. She also brought up an example of manipulation of the opposition, stating that, for the first time in many years, the opposition was allowed to hold a rally during which the members of the opposition made rather sharp allegations against the authorities for having a too mild position on the Karabakh issue. This allowed Aliyev to refer to the people’s opinion in Davos. Other applications for rallies have been rejected.”