Over the weekend, the Azeri opposition staged a rally that was unsanctioned by the government. The consequences for doing so were disastrous, with the police arresting up to 100 activists in one fell swoop, beating with batons dozens more. With elections coming up in just over a month, it goes to show how a government afraid for its own existence is beginning to take a hard line against the opposition.

Police in the former Soviet Azerbaijan republic have beaten and arrested dozens of protesters during a rally in the capital, Baku. Opposition parties held the rally despite a warning from Interior Minister Ramil Usubov who said police would break up the protest, The Associated Press reported.

Opposition supporters defied the authorities and tried to hold the demonstration ahead of parliamentary elections set for November. Thousands of supporters from the Caspian Sea nation????????s largest opposition, Azadlig, marched through Baku.

The Interior Ministry said the rally was not sanctioned and protesters had been warned that force would be used. Police in riot gear blocked off the roads leading to Baku????????s main square where thousands of demonstrators had planned to meet.

All across the city centre, groups of protesters tried to make their way through the police cordons. On one of the streets, they raised their hands to prove that they were not armed. Many held flowers to show their protest was peaceful, the BBC reported.

But as soon as they began to chant anti-government slogans, the police moved forward. They chased the demonstrators down the streets, beating them with batons.

The chief of Baku police, addressing media after the event, denied reports of injuries and said the organizers had been warned well in advance not to proceed with the unsanctioned rally.

Opposition leaders say they are trying to negotiate the release of the arrested activists.

The demonstrations have become almost weekly affairs, with the opposition demanding that President Ilham Aliev resign and that the Nov. 6 elections be free and fair.

The mounting tensions has led some observers to predict the oil-rich country could see a popular uprising similar to those that have taken place in the other former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

I’ve said several times before that I think Azerbaijan is the most likely post-Soviet country to undergo another colored revolution. Earlier in the year, opposition rallies weren’t allowed to register and garnered at most a few hundred supporters. Now, due to international pressure, the government has been allowing sanctioned rallies — which has ballooned the number of demonstrators up to the tens of thousands. In sum, the opposition movement, even though its platform and means of achieving democracy are relatively undecided upon, is gaining steam in the country.

However, the United States is not necessarily pushing for revolution there. They are pushing for a more “evolutionary” democracy as opposed to the revolutionary scenario that took place in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. The 2003 riots proved to be violent, and they’re afraid that the kind of mass unrest with such a barely united-out-of-convenience opposition movement would lead to an even worse political situation than exists right now. That is, no consensus would emerge on who to lead the country.

It also can’t be assumed that this is simply a government vs. opposition issue. Not everyone in the government is as hardline as the security and defense heads. What the strategy of “evolutionary democracy” means is getting enough of the opposition into parliament in the upcoming election so that they can work with the more reform-minded of the Aliyev government, thus outnumbering the hardliners.

That’s why the main emphasis this election season has been on free and fair elections, and not necessarily an outright victory for the opposition. The fact is, the opposition doesn’t much know how to govern, as they don’t really have a platform or even a clue about how to do so. Chances are, Aliyev still has enough popularity that he’d win anyway. However, if the vote is free and fair, the opposition really would win enough seats to be able to slowly move the country in the right direction. If this indeed is the outcome, it would certainly be preferable to all out revolution.