RUSSIA: An election this week in a former Soviet republic has underlined the weakness of democracy in several of the constituent parts of the former empire, reports Dan McLaughlin from Moscow
Power passed from father to son in the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan this week, in the latest election to highlight the shabby state of democracy from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific.
It is more than a decade since the Soviet Union disintegrated, its death throes drowned out by bold promises of political choice and free speech, but from Moscow, through the Caucasus and across Central Asia, power is still in the grip of authoritarian elites.
President Haidar Aliyev, a man called Baba - Grandfather - by those Azeris who don't accuse him of rampant corruption, gazed down from billboards across Azerbaijan as his son swept to an entirely predictable election victory.
From his hospital bed in the United States, Mr Aliyev snr (80) presided over the former Soviet Union's first dynastic transfer of power, with the playboy and failed casino manager son taking over from the former local Communist Party and KGB leader.
Hailing his father's decade as Azeri president as a time of stability and plenty, Mr Ilham Aliyev (41) promised not to stray from the path.
Critics say this means Azeris can expect to witness continued repression of opposition parties and spiralling wealth for the ruling clique, buoyed by billions of dollars invested in the Caspian Sea's oil reserves by some of the world's biggest energy firms.
At least one person died and dozens were injured in street fighting that followed Mr Aliyev jnr's declaration that he had won almost 80 per cent of votes in a poll condemned by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the US State Department.
However, observers from the old Soviet Union said they saw nothing wrong and several leaders of the former Communist bloc were quick to congratulate Mr Aliyev jnr.
"This convincing election shows that the people of Azerbaijan support your balanced programme for developing the country and its foreign policy course," the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, said in a telegram to Mr Aliyev.
Mr Putin's message came after he addressed the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia, in the company of the new Chechen President, Mr Ahmad Kadyrov.
Mr Kadyrov was fresh from his own landslide election win this month, when he scooped more than 80 per cent of the vote on a turnout of 86 per cent in the war-shattered region, where Moscow is fighting its second war in a decade with separatist rebels.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and other watchdogs stayed away, saying a fair vote was impossible while Russian troops still died daily in fighting, civilians complained of persistent rights abuses and all Mr Kadyrov's main opponents had withdrawn or were excluded from the election.
Mr Kadyrov, a former rebel who commands a personal army of about 4,000 men, was the Kremlin's hand-picked candidate for the election. Russian rights groups who witnessed the vote called the official figures absurd.
On the same weekend, a thousand miles north in St Petersburg, Mr Putin's proxy won a vote to become governor of Russia's second city.
His personal declaration of support for Ms Valentina Matviyenko and for the pro-Kremlin Unity party at its conference, had critics howling about breaches of election regulations and guidelines governing the president's supposed impartiality in such matters.
Russia's rubber-stamp Central Elections Committee, however, blustered embarrassedly and did nothing.
In regional elections across Russia, the Kremlin's men and women almost always win, often benefiting from the late withdrawal or exclusion of key rivals.
The Baltic States apart, the old Soviet states treats democracy as a tool to be tinkered with by local leaders, almost all of whom made a seamless transition from Communist Party boss to post-Soviet president.
In Turkmenistan, the leader has declared himself president- for-life. In Uzbekistan, rights groups say the police torture and murder opposition activists. In Kazakhstan, the president is grooming his daughter for power and she has married the son of the leader of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. There, a state once described as a haven of democracy, the president has pushed through a constitution that concentrates huge power in his hands.
Next door to Azerbaijan, Georgia's ageing leader is introducing his son to politics, with an eye to his succession.
Russia meanwhile goes to the polls twice in the next five months, with a parliamentary vote in December and a presidential poll due in March. The Unity Party faces competition from the Communists, but few people doubt that it will dominate the next parliament. For his part, Mr Putin looks unassailable.