Nul points

ON THE face of it, Ilham Aliev, the president of Azerbaijan, and the Eurovision Song Contest, held in his country this week, are a good fit. Eurovision, in which viewers across Europe (broadly defined) select a winning song from competing national entries, is an annual festival of kitsch. Mr Aliev's fondness for opulence, his strongman moustache, and the cult of personality he has built around his father, Heidar, from whom he inherited his post in 2003, are all suitably retro. Alas, his regime also has some less amusing traits, which suggest that the organisers of shindigs like Eurovision should be more careful about where they are staged (see article).

The story behind the songs is a sad one. Protests against Mr Aliev's rule, especially after the rigged elections that keep him in power, are routinely crushed. His critics have been beaten and imprisoned. Not only do Azerbaijan's human-rights abuses make a grim backdrop to the clowning of Eurovision: some have been perpetrated on its account. According to human-rights groups, scores of families have been forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for a new concert hall. Absurdly but terrifyingly, in previous Eurovisions Azerbaijanis were interrogated for voting for Armenia—the Caucasian neighbour with which Azerbaijan fought a war in the 1990s and may yet fight another. The lavish cost of the preparations is itself obscene in a place where many lack basic amenities, despite the gridlock of imported cars in central Baku, the capital. But then, Azerbaijan scores the full 12 points for corruption.

The wealth of a favoured few in Azerbaijan derives from oil and gas, pumped out of the Caspian and through a pipeline to Turkey. Along with the country's sensitive location—between Russia and Iran—the oil helps explain the West's often indulgent attitude to Mr Aliev. Yet the indulgence must have a limit. Eurovision should have been beyond it.

Politics by other means

A similar awkwardness recently arose over a more important tournament, the forthcoming European football championship, and a bigger country, Ukraine, its co-host. Commendably, some diplomats are refusing to turn up unless Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister now imprisoned on doubtful charges, is treated humanely. A long time has elapsed since Ukraine, with Poland, was awarded the football tournament in 2007: the intervening years have seen it not only build stadiums, but also lapse from a struggling but hopeful democracy into a darker place. Eurovision presents a different problem. Azerbaijan is host because it won last year's contest—somewhat unfortunately, in light of Mr Aliev's reputation, the victorious song was entitled “Running Scared”.

That rule should be changed. The bodies that oversee these extravaganzas are avowedly non-political; they argue that such contests promote international goodwill. But they become political tools, nonetheless. Although stable, democratic countries often approach them with wry amusement, for nasty leaders such as Mr Aliev these spectacles are valuable propaganda: Eurovision, the biggest thing in Azerbaijan since it became independent in 1991, has been presented as a diplomatic imprimatur. More discretion, for example relying on independent human-rights data, should be used in allocating them. Eurovision would have done more to further peace and fraternity if Azerbaijan had been refused the right to be the host until its government upheld those values.