Azerbaijan: Political parties

Last modified: 2004-01-29 by ivan sache
Keywords: crescents: 45 (white) | star: 5 points (white) | stars: 45 (white) | musavat party | federalist party | star: 8 points (white) | azerbaijan people's front |
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• Azerbaijan People's Front
• Federalist Party
• Musavat Party

See also:

• Azerbaijan
• Republic of Azerbaijan, 1918-1920

Azerbaijan People's Front

by Ivan Sache

In 1987 M. Gorbatschow expelled Guedar Aliev from the Politburo and the Soviet government. Since Aliev was the only Azerbaijani member in this government, this caused violences in Baku and the formation of the independentist Azerbaijani People's Front. The Front used the same flag as the first Azerbaijan flag from 1918, slightly modified.

Source: P. Lux-Wurm, Les drapeaux de l'Islam [lux01]

Ivan Sache, 21 June 2003

Federalist Party

by Jaume Ollé

In 1917, after the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Federalist Party of Azerbaijan led the struggle for autonomy. The flag of the Federalist Party was horizontally divided white, red and green.

Jaume Ollé, 2 November 1996

Musavat Party

by Jaume Ollé

The Musavat (Equality) party was founded in 1911 in Baku by the journalist Muhammad Amin Rasulzade.

The party adopted a light blue flag covered by 45 crescents and stars (the crescent pointed towards the hoist), in seven lines of 6,7,6,7,6,7,6 white crescent and stars. Then the party adopted a new flag, horizontally divided blue, red and green with a white crescent and star in the center, that was similar to the first national flag.

Jaume Ollé, 2 November 1996

On 2 August 2003, the Russian television channel NTV showed images from an opposition demonstration in Baku. Demonstrantors carried the national flag of Azerbaijan and many light blue (azure) flags with a silver (not white) crescent and eight-pointed star in the middle. The arrangment of the crescent and star was the same as on the national flag of Azerbaijan. This is presumably, the flag of the Musavat Party, which has a Pan-Turkish ideology. Light blue/azure is a Pan-Turkish colour.
There were plenty (a few hundreds) of identical, well-made flags. These flags might have been produced in Turkey, which supports the Musavat party.

Mikhail Revnivtsev, 6 August 2003