The big news in Azerbaijan is that, less than two weeks away from parliamentary elections scheduled for November 6, President Aliyev has ordered that NGOs be allowed to monitor the election and that indelible ink must be used to prevent double voting. All of these are measures requested by the OSCE in order to hold transparent elections. So I’ve titled my post to mock the headline used by ABC News, as you’ll come to find out, for good reason.

Oct 25, 2005 ???????? BAKU (Reuters) – Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday ordered steps to ensure a November 6 parliamentary vote is fair after Washington voiced concern over a police crackdown in the oil-producing ex-Soviet state.

Aliyev wants indelible ink applied to voters’ fingers and parliament to scrap a ban on foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) monitoring the election, state television reported.

Both measures were recommended by democracy watchdog the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe but had been rejected by Aliyev’s administration.

Aliyev ???????? son of the previous head of state ???????? said he changed his mind because he wanted “the final phase of the election process to pass off ??????? in accordance with the law.”

It looks like the circus has come to Baku.

There are a couple of big problems with this scenario, not the least of which stems from how late in the game these reforms are actually being implemented. In the past, local officials in support of the current government have generally failed to implement such measures. That’s a problem, because most officials support the Aliyev government and are influenced directly by bribes and coercion. Hey, ranking 137 on Transparency International’s corruption report must mean something!

Also, even if we look at the election as free and transparent as possible — which is unlikely — the campaign has been far from fair. Opposition candidates have received only a miniscule amount of the state television airtime that government candidates have received. That’s just the start of it. The government has even recruited candidates with the same names as opposition candidates in some districts so as to confuse voters. Another big thing is the constant breakup of opposition rallies. While it has been generally lenient since around May, the government has shown that, when challenged by the opposition, it will be relentless in its crackdown.

It has already allowed the United States to dispatch exit pollers to nearly 1000 polling stations so that results will be known almost immediately. However, the decision to allow NGOs to monitor the election is more interesting. At such a late stage, the opposition will now need to scramble and organize their observers as quickly as possible. But opposition and international NGOs aren’t the only ones that exist. I think that the government will likely have NGOs set up so that, when the opposition tries to claim fraud, there will be an equal number of other NGOs affiliated with the government who will try to dispute their claim.

Everything also goes back to events in the past week, when Aliyev had several ministers in his cabinet fired; ones who, unlike those in the security apparatus, were seen as dissenters and possible collaborators with the opposition post-election. Even though there is no chance that the opposition will win near a majority of the vote, it was widely seen that those opposition candidates who did get seats would work with reformers in the government. That option is pretty much off the table now that they’ve all been dismissed or arrested.

And speaking of the security apparatus, Aliyev must be sweating the opposition’s hopes of a colored revolution, because he keeps relying on police force more and more. Just like in 2003, the opposition will try to hold a big protest after the election and subsequently try to force Aliyev’s ousting. And, just like last time, the government will probably put them down.

The opposition has indeed grown stronger in numbers and incredibly in unity since then, so anything can happen. But the most likely thing that will happen at that point, and it will certainly be a turning point in many regards to Azerbaijan’s domestic and international politics, is that any revolution that tries to manifest itself will be more violent than velvet.