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One night in January this year, a bronze statue of Azerbaijan's late strongman ruler Heydar Aliyev vanished from its perch on Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City's most historic boulevard, Jenifer Renkin writes in European Voice.

According to the article The Aliyev monument had been unveiled in August last year, causing dismay and confusion in equal parts. Mexicans wondered why city authorities had chosen to honour a dead autocrat who had ruled a country 8,000 miles away. “It turned out that Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former communist country on the Caspian Sea, had paid handsomely to renovate the park in which the statue was erected. Rumours swirled that the Azerbaijani government had threatened to pull $4 billion worth of investment out of Mexico if the statue was removed,” the article says.

According to the author the tale of the disappearing statue has all the hallmarks of Azerbaijan's current political system: a creepy personality cult, wads of cash, and a hint of menace. At the centre of the story is President Ilham Aliyev, son of Heydar.
According to the article Under Ilham Aliyev, oil has flowed, corruption has flourished and freedoms have stagnated. “In Azerbaijan, the most easterly member of the European Union's Eastern Partnership, seats in the parliament are touted for $1 million and critical journalists wind up in jail. Azerbaijan ranks 156th out of 179 countries for press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders; on Transparency International's corruption perceptions index, it is 139th out of 176, well below its Caucasian neighbours Armenia and Georgia,” the author writes.

As the article reads, Today, Aliyev is facing perhaps the most serious challenge to his ten-year rule as protests flare across the country in the build-up to a presidential election in October. “In January, thousands demonstrated in Ismailia demanding the resignation of the local governor. The same month saw shopkeepers on the streets of the capital, Baku, campaigning against rent rises. In March, police used water cannons to disperse hundreds of people who had gathered in the capital to protest against unexplained deaths in the military,” the European Voice writes.

Kenan Aliyev, head of the Azerbaijani service at Radio Free Europe, says two factors are driving the discontent exploding on social media – the high cost of living, and corruption. “Very little of the oil money is touching the daily lives of people...there is huge dissatisfaction with the government,” he says.

Emin Milli, a writer and opposition activist who has served two jail terms for his political activities, says Aliyev “was sold as a guarantor of stability”, but now has turned into “a guarantor of chaos”.

“Ilham Aliyev was a political novice when he was swept into the presidency aged 41 in 2003 as his father was dying of heart disease. Although Aliyev junior had notched up various jobs in the ruling New Azerbaijan party, he had a reputation as a dilettante who preferred gambling in casinos to shaping policy. After studying at the elite Moscow State Institute of International Relations in the Soviet Union, famed for producing Moscow's top diplomats, Aliyev had gone into business after the collapse of communism. He certainly led a more comfortable life than his father, who worked his way through the ranks of the KGB to become the first Muslim in the Politburo,” the author writes.

According to the article Azerbaijan's political system – likened by US diplomats in leaked cables to medieval feudalism – has hardly changed since Aliyev junior came to power. “He has sacked some cabinet ministers, but key players of the Heydar Aliyev government remain in post, including the interior minister, the defence minister and his chief of staff, notes Kenan Aliyev.
Aliyev is running the government of his father,” K. Alieva says.

“Heydar Aliyev is not easily forgotten in Baku. His likeness pops up on billboards and plinths all over Baku, while Azerbaijan's Academy of Sciences is hard at work devising “Aliyev science” in the run-up to the ten-year anniversary of his death this May,” the article says.

The author notes that as Ilham Aliyev polishes the personality cult of his father, discontent about corruption is spiralling. Khadija Ismayilova, an award-winning investigative journalist, was prosecuted for uncovering the extent of the family's holdings.