At first glance, the recent elections in Azerbaijan look like more of the same -- an autocrat voted in by a huge majority, of interest to outsiders only because this country will play a crucial role in exploiting vast quantities of oil and gas. But for those on the ground, it is clear that at least a determined breeze of change is sweeping over the former Soviet republic. PNS contributor Thomas Goltz is author of the acclaimed "Azerbaijan Diary" published by M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY.

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN-- The president of this fractious nation of eight million, Heydar Aliyev, is apparently busy stealing an election he has already won.

While observers from European agencies noted that the election process "did not comply with international standards," they also applauded "noticeable efforts to improve the democratic environment."

"An ineffable element of fear has disappeared," says a European diplomat here, "and that is the greatest change that these elections have brought to this country, with results that one cannot yet fathom."

Exit polls and opposition claims suggest Aliyev collected around 60 percent of the vote. This would be sufficient anywhere else to win re-election, but here a new constitution -- passed in 1995 by Aliyev's rubber-stamp parliament -- requires that any presidential candidate receive two thirds of the popular vote to win in the first round.

Aliyev, 75 years old and a former KGB general and Politburo member, claims 75 percent of the vote.

The 66.6 percent requirement is almost impossible to meet in a field with more than two candidates. One observer calls it "an invitation to the government to commit sufficient fraud to lift their man over the barrier." But, he goes on, "it was a barrier created by Aliyev himself. (He won the last presidential elections in 1993 with an impossible 98 percent of the vote. ) He assumed that what his legion of sycophants told him about the devotion of the people was true. He shot himself in the foot."

Indeed, even opposition candidates do not contend that Aliyev won less than 50 percent of the vote. But by contesting his figures, they are insisting on a run-off -- and that is the last thing Aliyev and his supporters, including the western business community so dependent on him, want to see.

Azerbaijan is a key site in the great oil and gas sweepstakes around the Caspian Sea. In his first term, Aliyev signed more than $40 billion in exploration and production-sharing agreements with western oil firms, bringing a veneer of prosperity and stability to a country once synonymous with political chaos.

"This country needs another five years of stability under Aliyev to turn the corner," said one western oilman. "If that means a delay on western-style democracy, then so be it."

Already, it is clear there can be no going back to Aliyev's style of autocratic stability.

"The myth of the man has been broken," said Ilkhan, a young businessman who claims to have the greatest respect for Aliyev for having "saved the country" in 1993. This time he cast his vote for an alternative candidate -- Etibar Mamedov, the 44 year old chairman of the National Independence Party, who claims to have collected some 24 percent of the vote.

Mamedov surprised observers by mounting a highly organized campaign that included blistering attacks on Aliyev on state-run television, with accusations of "blood-sucking" corruption, incompetence and a "sickness" for power lasting over 30 years. Initially dismissed as a convenient foil for Aliyev who would give the elections a veneer of democratic legitimacy, Mamedov not only proved himself a viable alternative to Aliyev's autocratic style of rule, but also managed to lift certain taboos -- such as attacks on the heretofore sacrosanct person of the president.

Mamedov's campaign has also brought the complete and utter marginalization of the so-called "radical opposition," a five party coalition known by the unfortunate acronym of MERDE who completely overplayed their hand by choosing to boycott the polls as spoilers.

"The leadership of the so-called radical opposition look like fools and have lost any remaining credibility that they had," said a western diplomat. "As for Etibar Mamedov, he has effectively placed himself in the number one slot to succeed Aliyev if and when the old man goes."

Mamedov could, in theory, go to the newly formed constitutional court and demand a run-off. Already, however, rumor has it that the government is negotiating an arrangement which would allow him to stake a claim to future leadership while allowing the incumbent but chastised Aliyev to squeak over the two-thirds hurdle and claim first round victory in the first semi-democratic elections in his long career.