Considering rallies just a few month ago could barely top a tenth of that, it just goes to show how the government’s allowing of protest rallies has swelled the ranks and notoriety of the united opposition. In the largest rally I have yet to cover for this country, 20,000 opposition activists clad in the color orange took the the streets of Baku to demand a fair vote and the resignation of President Aliyev.

Some 20,000 anti government protestors called for reforms in Azerbaijan on Saturday in their first gathering since the election campaign officially opened in the former Soviet republic.

“We have shown our strength and this is just the beginning,” a leader of the opposition Azadliq (Freedom) block Sardar Jalaloglu told the rally, which was organized ahead of November 6 parliamentary elections.

Official campaigning for the vote, in which over 2,000 candidates will compete for just 125 seats, started earlier this week.

Demonstrators, many wearing orange shirts and carrying orange balloons, chanted “freedom!” and shouted “step down!” in a slogan directed at the oil-rich state’s President Ilham Aliyev.

Protestors issued a list of demands to the authorities at the rally, calling for reforms to elections legislation as well as the right for a number of exiled politicians to return for participation in the vote.

They also called for the removal of the director of a new public television channel that the authorities announced would act as an impartial media outlet ahead of the elections.

Ismail Omarov, the channel’s head, is a former manager of state controlled AZTV 1, which the opposition has accused of airing biased pro-government programming.

Tensions have been rising between the authorities and the opposition in the run up to the vote, with police violently cracking down on some opposition protests earlier in the year.

Due to foreign pressure, the Azeri government has been opening up the political system, which has directly led to the opposition movement gaining incredible steam. Apart from other countries that the United States and OSCE are putting pressure on, such as Belarus and Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan is perhaps the country most ripe for revolution out of the entire lot.

The opposition is mounting an intense campaign against a government that is seeking to now win its elections through very crafty means. During the presidential elections in 2003, when Aliyev took over from his father, riots of thousands broke out in the streets of Baku for a couple of days until the government was able to suppress the uprising. Now, the opposition is much more organized and united. It will be monitoring polling stations and mobilizing its activists and the population against the government if it wins the elections through fraud. So here is my prediction: if there is any country which is likely to have another colored revolution anytime within the next year, it’s Azerbaijan.