MOSCOW, November 8 -- After the parliamentary election Azerbaijan will have good chances to develop more actively its democratic institutions, Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev said in an interview with the Russian television Channel One. He hopes that the new parliament will "work more actively on the lawmaking and Azerbaijan?s acceptance of democratic values."

According to the president, future Azerbaijan "needs a new competent and modern opposition that would think about the interests of people, criticise the authorities, offer something and seek it in a constitutional way."

Commenting on the situation on the eve of the election when a plot in the Azerbaijani government was exposed and several ministers were arrested, Aliyev noted that this decision "was not easy to take, as these people worked on responsible posts since the times of my father?s rule." He believes that "the smell of revolution in the air in the region certainly turned brain to some extent to our local oppositionists of already the retirement age."

"All those who pretend to be oppositionists and put on orange neckties have been in opposition for 12 years and lost all elections - presidential and parliamentary elections and tell about the same things," the president remarked. "They have already felt their irrelevance to some degree, realised that they are a break and are the symbols of corruption in Azerbaijan. They were probably prompted to some extent to make these steps," Aliyev indicated.

Meanwhile, according to Aliyev, "perhaps, some circles outside Azerbaijan believe that they may achieve something, Azerbaijan?s independent policy does not possibly suit everybody."
sections: Politics, Society, World News